October 15 – 16, 2007, Prague – Hotel Corinthia Towers

Central and Eastern Europe continues to be an extremely active market for public private partnership projects. There is a growing trend to analyze the opportunities that PPP schemes can offer.

Jacob Fleming, being an acknowledged business to business intelligence company, recognizes the growing potential of PPPs in the Central and Eastern Europe. We provide a neutral communication platform for all the parties involved in designing, planning and executing PPP projects.

The Jacob Fleming’s PPP in CEE Conference is undoubtedly the oldest and most successful event of its kind. For three years now, has our company been attentively listening to the industry needs in order to put together this prestigious event. On October 15 and 16, 2007 the Corinthia Towers, a five star luxury hotel in Prague, hosted around 250 governmental, municipal and private sector representatives from all over Europe for our third annual in the series.

The first conference day was chaired by Jonathan Cripps, Partner, Project and Infrastructure Finance Group at Eversheds. His natural and easy going style kept the conference flow smooth and dynamic. The morning session of conference day 1 was opened a keynote by the International Project Finance Association. He outlined the current trends and future developments of PPPs across the European market with a special insight into the situation in CEE and its potential for 2008. Next the representative of the Czech PPP Unit – PPP Centre, Filip Drapak, looked at how risk management in PPP schemes can be assessed how this affects the partners involved in the PPP scheme. Legal insight was brought by Mike Mousdale of Eversheds, who addressed the issue of applying EU procurement rules to PPPs, especially he highlighted the importance of the competitive dialogue procedure.

The morning session was wrapped by Interactive Governmental Panel Discussion hosting representatives from the governments of Latvia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Hungary and chaired by Marcel Babczynski from Erste Corporate Finance, Czech Republic. The panel discussed the overall situation of PPPs in these countries and promoted the ongoing and upcoming PPP projects. In the following question and answer round the audience had the unique opportunity to have their questions answered by the governmental panellists.

After the luncheon, representatives of leading international and European institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, National Audit Office – UK, EIB, IFC and EBRD presented a great variety of issues linked to the financial architecture of PPP such as the main fiscal risks related to PPPs, accounting for PPPs in terms of the on/off balance sheet accounting, combining PPP with EU Grants. Angelo Dell’Atti from IFC shared their experience with PPP in Southeast Europe.
Towards the end of the first conference day the EBRD looked at the development of PPP legislation in the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The final session was dedicated to the municipalities and their undertakings in the field of PPP. The presentation by Peter Snelson of Atkins provided a more general overview of this topic which was then elaborated further during the interactive municipal discussion. The representatives of the City of Warsaw, Vilnius and Budapest provided an outline of the current and planned PPPs in their municipalities along with defining the main barriers to be tackled. An interactive question and answer round followed.

At the end of the first conference day the participants took part in a networking gala dinner sponsored by Eversheds. The dinner was held at the prestigious Prague – Kogo restaurant situated in the historical centre.

The second conference day provided a closer look at case studies and concrete projects which are planned or already in the implementation process. The starting session had a look at the upcoming UEFA Project - Euro 2012 planned for Poland and Ukraine. Representatives of Eversheds, Dexia Kommunalkredit, Scott Wilson, PWC and the Ministry of Economy, Ukraine looked at the challenges of both countries with the upcoming EURO 2012 championship. After the opening session the conference split into two simultaneous streams focusing on Transport Infrastructure Projects and Social Infrastructure Projects.

The transport infrastructure stream, chaired by Mark Varian of Eversheds, started off with a presentation by EC Harris addressing the examples of successful PPP road projects in Western Europe. Next we looked at one of the most discussed Russian projects – the Western High Speed Diameter presented by EGIS and Freshfields.

The afternoon session looked at case studies on airport PPP projects in Albania, Macedonia and Bulgaria presented by Deloitte. Legal insight into the situation in Romania was brought by Andreea Ionescu of the law firm Ţuca Zbârcea & Asociaţii outlining the current legal situation in Romania along with a number of case studies they participated in. At the end of this stream Francois Tscheng of Bouygues Travaux Publics presented a rather unusual case of using the PPP framework for the railway infrastructure.

The second stream on social infrastructure projects chaired by Boris Martor of Eversheds looked at a variety of projects starting with a PriceWaterHouse Coopers case study of a Czech sports and leisure project Ponava in Brno. Next a couple of presentations from Latvia looked at the current legal situation in Latvia and how this affects the PPPs in Latvia presented by Inta Lipovska of the Ministry of Economy. The case study on pilot projects concerning the district heating supply system of Jekabpils city was presented by the Latvian Investment and Development Agency represented by Liga Neilande.

Successful healthcare projects financed through the PPP scheme are very attractive to the audience and so was also the case of the Czech Pardubice regional hospital presented by Erste Corporate Finance. The following presentation by the erha consulting group brought examples of healthcare PPP projects from UK, Germany or the Netherlands.

The second stream was concluded by another Czech project on courts presented by Frantisek Steiner from the Ministry of Justice, Czech Republic addressing the different stages of the projects and expected results.

At the end of the day we could clearly see the complexity of PPPs in the Central and Eastern Europe. Participants identified a strong demand for more networking and learning opportunities like the 3rd Annual PPP in CEE since especially the public sector still suffers from a lack of capabilities and experience linked to PPPs. The Jacob Fleming team is working hard to identify and meet the needs and expectations of our clients. We look forward to meeting you again in April 2008 at the Jacob Fleming’s “PPP in CEE and SEE Summit – Promoting Public and Private Sector Initiatives”.

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