Raivis Veckagans, Head of the Ukrainian Sea Ports Administration (USPA), is confident that the adoption of the new Law on Concession by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine will help attract foreign investors to the implementation of public-private partnership projects in the port industry and improve conditions for implementing the pilot projects for state stevedoring company concessions in the ports of Olvia and Kherson, USPA says in a press release.
Although the tenders themselves and the signing of investment agreements will take place under the legislation in force at the time of their announcement, the new Law will significantly accelerate the launch of the projects implementation and simplify a great number of transitional procedures for investors. “After the new Law on Concession comes into force, the time which is required for a concessionaire to all the necessary permits and licenses obtaining, as well as project designing, can be reduced from one and a half year to three months. Reducing bureaucratic procedures will allow us to proceed more quickly to the investments absorption as such, in which the state, investors, USPA and local authorities are directly interested, ” — Raivis Veckagans, Head of USPA, commented on the decision adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on October 3.
According to Taras Boychuk, Head of the SPILNO Public-Private Partnership Management Office under the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, the changes in the legislation will significantly simplify the land obtaining procedure, as well as reduce the time required to start the project designing for the winners of concession tenders in the ports of Olvia and Kherson. Besides, investors will get an opportunity to launch the activities using existing licenses of state stevedoring companies. A concessionaire will have six months to re-register them.
In addition, the improvement of the concession legislation in Ukraine will facilitate the more active participation of foreign and domestic investors in the open state stevedoring company concession tenders in other sea ports, which are already being prepared.