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23 January 2017
By Shane McGinley
Qatar is planning to introduce a new law governing the use of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in early 2017 as the government looks to ease the strain of funding a pipeline of projects ahead of the Gulf state’s hosting of the FIFA World Cup in 2022, a lawyer involved in the process told Zawya.
“We have been appointed by the government of Qatar to set up a PPP programme from scratch, including the law,” Tim Armsby, a partner at law firm Eversheds, told Zawya in an interview at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi last week.
“They want to issue the law early this year and they have already got a pipeline identified,” he added when asked for more details on the legislation, which had previously been forecast to be passed by the end of 2016.
Around $2 trillion worth of construction projects are in the pipeline in the Gulf at present, consultancy firm Deloitte reported in May last year, with 8.57 percent expected to be delivered in Qatar.
The Gulf state is spending tens of billions of dollars on projects to upgrade its infrastructure and prepare to host the 2022 World Cup, but an official at Qatar's ministry of economy and commerce told Reuters last year there would be opportunities for the private sector in a variety of sectors, such as a PPP programme to build around a dozen public schools.
Spending in Qatar’s 2017 budget is set to decline to 28.4 billion riyals ($5.4 billions), down from 46.5 billion riyals last year, according to a recent report earlier this month by the Qatar National Bank (QNB).
Capital spending is planned to increase by 3.2 percent in 2017, with transportation and infrastructure accounting for 21.2 percent of the budget, followed by health (12.3 percent) and education (10.4 percent), the QNB report stated.
With oil prices still relatively low, many governments around the region are increasingly looking to the private sector to partner on large-scale infrastructure projects.
Dubai emirate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) unveiled its PPP legislation in 2015 and the UAE is currently working on a federal version. Kuwait is also working on a PPP law, Reuters reported this month, while Armsby said Oman was also likely to issue its own legislation by the end of 2017.
© Zawya 2017
By Shane McGinley
Qatar is planning to introduce a new law governing the use of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in early 2017 as the government looks to ease the strain of funding a pipeline of projects ahead of the Gulf state’s hosting of the FIFA World Cup in 2022, a lawyer involved in the process told Zawya.
“We have been appointed by the government of Qatar to set up a PPP programme from scratch, including the law,” Tim Armsby, a partner at law firm Eversheds, told Zawya in an interview at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi last week.
“They want to issue the law early this year and they have already got a pipeline identified,” he added when asked for more details on the legislation, which had previously been forecast to be passed by the end of 2016.
Around $2 trillion worth of construction projects are in the pipeline in the Gulf at present, consultancy firm Deloitte reported in May last year, with 8.57 percent expected to be delivered in Qatar.
The Gulf state is spending tens of billions of dollars on projects to upgrade its infrastructure and prepare to host the 2022 World Cup, but an official at Qatar's ministry of economy and commerce told Reuters last year there would be opportunities for the private sector in a variety of sectors, such as a PPP programme to build around a dozen public schools.
Spending in Qatar’s 2017 budget is set to decline to 28.4 billion riyals ($5.4 billions), down from 46.5 billion riyals last year, according to a recent report earlier this month by the Qatar National Bank (QNB).
Capital spending is planned to increase by 3.2 percent in 2017, with transportation and infrastructure accounting for 21.2 percent of the budget, followed by health (12.3 percent) and education (10.4 percent), the QNB report stated.
With oil prices still relatively low, many governments around the region are increasingly looking to the private sector to partner on large-scale infrastructure projects.
Dubai emirate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) unveiled its PPP legislation in 2015 and the UAE is currently working on a federal version. Kuwait is also working on a PPP law, Reuters reported this month, while Armsby said Oman was also likely to issue its own legislation by the end of 2017.
© Zawya 2017
