Lebanese officials, technicians and experts have reiterated the need to implement a public-private partnership (PPP) law in order to reduce government expenses and achieve higher economic growth.

In Lebanon, the draft law is currenty stalled as it has yet to be passed by Parliament.

The dialogue was during “PPP Opens New Horizons,” a conference held at Ecole Superieure des Affaires in Clemenceau, aimed to underline the positive outcomes that a partnership between the public and private sectors would bring to the future projects in Lebanon.

Economy Minister Alain Hakim said at the conference:

“Creating synergy between the public and private sectors contributes to creating job opportunities while minimizing the public debt and deficit and providing better funding for infrastructure projects. This can be achieved by funding infrastructure projects, especially in electricity, water, roads, renewable energy and environmental sectors, noting that these projects create hundreds of thousands of job opportunities. Public-private partnership can also increase economic growth to 7 percent. The quality of infrastructure has a great impact on the productivity level of a country and its capacity to compete in export markets, in addition to attracting foreign investment."

Ziad Hayek, general secretary of the Higher Council for Privatization, said that the Higher Council for Privatization has been working hard for the past nine years with the government to approve the PPP law.

Laurence Carter, senior director of PPPs at the World Bank who was there representing it, assured that the World Bank Group will support Lebanon to improve its infrastructure services through PPPs. 

The World Bank even will offer its services to provide advice on structuring and bidding a power plant as the first part of a program of power investments and after that the World Bank will provide a loan for a bus rapid transit system, structured as a PPP as well.