Abstract
Numerous public-private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects have been operating in China after nearly 30 years of development. Surprisingly, few lessons and experiences have been drawn from these existing cases, thereby creating an urgent demand for a comprehensive evaluation of their performance. Thus, this paper presents a timely contribution to the assessment of a representative PPP project in China’s water sector, the Chengdu No. 6 Water Plant B Project, from a lifecycle perspective. Through a triangulation method, the project is generally deemed a success providing instructive lessons on the future evolutionary development of PPPs in China despite several imperfections caused by particular historical factors. Moreover, this paper advances the performance measurement of PPPs offering empirical insights to promote the efficacy of conceptual performance measurement frameworks. The outcomes of this research are especially valuable to the current Chinese PPP community where huge opportunities and challenges simultaneously exist.
Highlights
The concept of public-private partnerships (PPPs) can be defined as long period co-operation between public and private sectors to jointly provide public products or services to which the risks, costs and resources related are shared by the two sectors (Ham & Koppenjan, 2001)
According to the World Bank’s Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) Database, the total number of PPI projects in China that have achieved financial closure as of July 2017, is a significant 1,373. This number does not include projects initiated by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) who are major investors in Chinese PPP projects
This paper employed a crucial case study method (Gerring, 2007), that is, a single case, the Chengdu Project, was selected as research object for the following reasons: (1) this paper aims to establish an authentic revelation of the lifecycle performance of China’s water PPPs; cases that underwent the entire concession period could be suitable
Summary
The concept of public-private partnerships (PPPs) can be defined as long period co-operation between public and private sectors to jointly provide public products or services to which the risks, costs and resources related are shared by the two sectors (Ham & Koppenjan, 2001). According to the World Bank’s Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) Database, the total number of PPI projects in China that have achieved financial closure as of July 2017, is a significant 1,373. Even so, this number does not include projects initiated by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) who are major investors in Chinese PPP projects. To assuage the water crisis, the Chengdu municipal government (CMG) initiated a new water plant development program that proposed several projects. Actual commercial operation began in 2001, with treated water was delivered to the Chengdu Waterworks General Company (CWGC), a local state-owned utility.
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