The Republic of Belarus has announced plans to issue five to six tender processes to develop pilot public-private partnership PPP projects by the end of 2014.

The planning PPP projects would be infrastructure projects in small-scale power generation, road construction and education.

Alexander Zaborovsky, First Deputy Head of the Council of Ministers Office, Head of the Belarus Prime Minister Secretariat, stated:

By the end of the year we will come up with five to six pilot projects. With the help of international experts we will hold a tender to select the best counterparts.

This plans comes after the Belarusian Economy Ministry announced the creation of a public private partnership center several months ago. The Belarusian public private partnership center will be created as part of a project involving the Belarusian Economy Ministry, the European Union and the UNDP. The EU/UNDP project has apportioned quite sufficient resources for developing the potential and for training the selected people.

The center is designed to bolster the national potential for applying public private partnership mechanisms, with the total budget close to $1.1 million. Proposals to amend the relevant laws have been developed and are being discussed already.

The country is promoting the use of the PPP model, it is becoming the leader in the post-Soviet space in terms of using PPP mechanisms.

In late february we reported that the Belarusian Economy Ministry was looking for a head and senior specialists of the national center for public private partnership.