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The city of Belgrade and representatives of Suez and Itochu entered into the largest Public-Private Partnership (PPP) ever signed in Serbia for the remediation of the Belgrade municipal waste landfill and the financing, construction and long-term operation of modern waste management facilities for the Serbian capital.

Under this agreement, Suez and Itochu’s 50/50 joint-venture will raise over €300 million (US$354 million) financing to build a 340,000 tons p.a. waste-to-energy facility with installed power production capacity of 25 MW and heat production capacity of 56 MW. In addition, a dedicated facility will process 200,000 tons of construction and demolition waste per year. Finally, a new waste disposal designed in accordance with European standards will dispose of residual waste pending the development of the recycling policy currently rolled out by City authorities.

Once the new facilities are available, the municipal landfill of Belgrade will be closed. The joint-venture will undertake the remediation and long-term aftercare of the 60 ha landfill.

Following completion of construction managed by CNIM and Energoprojekt and planned in 2021, the facilities will be operated by SUEZ for a 25-year term.

The tender was organized by the City of Belgrade with the support of International Finance Corporation, the private finance institution of the World Bank Group. As we reported, the consortium was the only bidder to submit a proposal in July, and was awarded preferred bidder status in August.

Upon signing the PPP Contract, Marie-Ange Debon, Senior Executive Vice-President of SUEZ in charge of International stated:

"The Belgrade Waste PPP is a landmark and pathfinder project for a region which has huge investment needs in infrastructure, in particular in the environment sector. We are convinced that Public-Private Partnerships are among the best solutions to combine technical, financial and contractual performance and we are proud that the City of Belgrade selected us to bring the model to this part of Europe."