A workshop was held in Hanoi on July 4 to look into the prevention and settlement of contractual disputes in infrastructure public-private partnership (PPP) projects.

Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) Hoang Quang Phong said the country has great demand for infrastructure development and will need resources for this work in the time ahead. Therefore, the PPP model is assessed as an important channel to mobilise investment capital to meet that demand.

The PPP model has proved effective over the past years, he noted, citing the Government’s data as showing that as of January 2019, 336 PPP projects had their contracts inked, including 140 build-operate-transfer projects and 188 build-transfer ones.

The Government is drafting a law on PPP investment and plans to submit this to the National Assembly at the session this October, Phong said, noting that this is a very important legal framework for promoting the flow of private capital into infrastructure development.

He added the workshop, held by the VCCI, the Vietnam International Arbitration Centre (VIAC) and the Republic of Korea’s Commercial Arbitration Board (KCAB), discussed the issue of public attention, which is the settlement of disputes in PPP projects and the prevention of these disagreements from turning into lawsuits between private investors and the state.

Head of the KCAB Lee Ho-won said the KCAB and the VIAC will continue working together to organise more specialised events to serve not only Vietnamese and Korean businesses but also foreign investors who will come and choose Vietnam as a feasible and stable investment destination.