Critical Success Factors of Applying PPP Financing Model on Urban Subway in China

Abstract

For a long time, the development of urban infrastructures has been considered as a national responsibility, which means the urban infrastructures should be invested, constructed and operated by the public sectors. The urban subway infrastructures have the characteristics of large upfront investment, long cycle for return on investment, low profits and so on, which make the private sectors that they have no abilities to afford the investment and no desires to afford the investment for the infrastructures. However, many years after years, with the development of countries, public sectors are increasingly hard to afford the huge funds to construct and maintain infrastructures under monopolistic mode. Since from the eighties of the 20th century, western countries and some other countries had started to do some researches and practices to PPP financing model and accumulated many experiences. China, as a developing country with rapid economics development, is more urgent for a variety of large?scale infrastructures than other countries. It is a certain way to build more and more infrastructures with flexible and variable financing models. Over the past decade in China, the transformation of government functions and the increasing demands for subways, encouraged the opening of urban subway market, the diversification of investment and financing entities, the introduction of competition, and improvement of management efficiency. In the year of 2005, the PPP financing model reached a peak of its development in China. The Beijing Metro Line 4 is the first application case of PPP financing model in China, which tried to use PPP financing model in the design, construction and operation to ease the shortage of central government funds. But in the following years, there are only few cities tried to introduce PPP financing model to the subway projects, and most of the other cities were worried about PPP financing model itself, which has complex form of organizations and high cost in the early phases, with the co?effects from global economic crisis in the year of 2008, there seems a declining trend on the application of PPP financing model in China. However, it can be seen as another period to apply PPP financing model in China currently. The main objective is this thesis is how to achieve successful PPP subway project in China. In this thesis, the author starts from the theoretical explanation of PPP financing model applying in the urban subway infrastructures through analyzing the definition, classification, life cycle and actor analysis of PPP financing model and the characteristics of urban subway. And then, with these theories, the applicability of PPP financing model on urban subway in China is discussed in section 2.3. In the third chapter, the author chooses critical success factors as the point, collects and designs a questionnaire with 59 success factors based on comprehensive factors and seven life cycle phases, which are feasibility study and project approval phase, the private sectors chosen and establishment of PPP Project Company phase, design phase, tender phase, construction phase, operation and maintenance phase, and transfer phase, and all of these success factors are considered as critical ones by some famous academics. After two months sending and collection of the questionnaires, 41 valid questionnaires are finalized. The data from these responders are analyzed from the view of phases and totality in section 3.3. There are 18 critical success factors from the view of phases, which are The project conforms to national policies, urban development objectives, degrees of economic development, Governments' abilities on finance and leadership, Financing model is attractive to private sectors, Expected return on investment to private sectors, Good relationship between competitors and governments, Good management skills of the contractors, Innovation of design, PPP experiences of private sectors, Total investment of design, Special preferential policies provided by the governments, Good quality control, Good safety measures, Reasonable price, Stable operation environment, Support by the Central Government, Normative legislation and enforcement (Foreign Investment Law, Contract Law, Intellectual Property Law, Bidding Law, Tax Law), Good method to transfer technology, and Good degree of the current project. There are seven success components from the view of totality, which are Component 1 (Safety, high quality and the stability of operation environment in the operation and maintenance phase), Component 2 (Safety, high quality and standards on the construction in the construction phase), Component 3 (Abilities and credits of contractors, which will influence the results of tender), Component 4 (Ability of local government, the local government is a important public sector in the subway projects, which will influence the PPP projects much), Component 5 (Relationship between governments and the other departments or organizations, which sometimes will influence the negotiation results on preferential treatments between these organizations or departments and governments in the tender phase), Component 6 (Anticipated benefits got by the private sectors), and Component 7 (Support from the central government, which is the fundamental to carry out all the infrastructures in China). In the fourth chapter, the author takes Harbin Subway case as the example, and the objective is to design some specific policy recommendations for Harbin government to use PPP financing model in Harbin Subway Line 2 or 3. The history and future plan of Harbin Subway are discussed at the beginning to analyze the applicability and feasibility of PPP financing model on Harbin Subway. Then, from the view of Harbin government, the author analyzes the goal hierarchy and actors involved in Harbin Subway case. Associated with the critical success factors from the questionnaires, the author gives some specific policy recommendations in life cycle phases, especially in the private sectors chosen and establishment of PPP Project Company phase, which is the basic phase of successful PPP project.