Tuesday, October 1, 2013

A new kind of infrastructure risk

We’ve spoken a bit about the factor of risk in infrastructure projects, and categorized them as well.

The article here (A New Type of Risk in Infrastructure Projects, by Maria Craciun), adds to that categorization, using a few different lines of thinking. It also talks about a kind of risk we haven't mentioned..

Please find below a paragraph from the paper of particular significance with respect to PPPs:

To the above three risks it seems appropriate to introduce a fourth one, manifested especially in the latest years: the risk of financing. The global financial crisis that affected, 2008-2010, a significant part of the world economy, including the U.S., EU or Japan, gave birth to a new type of risk, one that initiators of investment projects had not witnessed before. This risk is determined by events which can lead to loss of project funding opportunities. So far, usually, the inability to finance a project has been due for the most part, to the project itself. Either this did not meet the requirements of potential lenders or providers of capital, or was confronted with a number of risks whose costs and whose ownership was deemed too expensive.


Please note the final risk the author talks about is something that has become predominant relatively recently. This risk is the risk of a good project not being able to take off because of the lack of sufficient funds. That point really stresses on the importance of PPPs because the risk can be totally mitigated if governments really are willing to fund and support private projects and set up partnerships with them. 

Although, I am not sure how valid this kind of risk is for the Indian scenario at present.

2 comments:

Chandranshu_Nanda said...

I feel that the government should lend the private player depending on how crucial the infrastructure facility is. If it's an important one, it will be used irrespective of an economic crunch, and thus can recover the cost.
Still this situation you have described above looks like a deadlock, and I think in most cases the projects will just stop.

Unknown said...

Yes, that's the case only if the government is playing an active role. They might end up having to build it themselves five years down the line if the private player drops out.