|
Sector: |
Transport, Railways |
|
Name of Agreement: |
Draft Model Concession Agreement for Operation and Management of a Railway |
|
Type of Agreement: |
Draft Model Concession Agreement for Operation and Management of a Railway |
|
Region (if known): |
Decree No.1241-N on the Assessment and Approval of PPP projects
An indirect general policy framework for improving the legal environment and promoting PSP has been identified in Armenia (Poverty Reduction Strategic Paper). Armenia does not have a general concession Law. General laws do not refer to and regulate concessions (apart from the general reference in the Law on Foreign Investments providing that concessions are one of the forms of foreign investments). Two sector-specific laws regulate concessions, in the mining and water sectors.
The Agreement sets out how railway property may be assigned to the concession, and how specific properties, including land and other properties, can be assigned to the concessionaire for use but not with an ownership interest. The Concession allows for both infrastructure and train operation and for third party access including international traffic.
The Soviet Union’s collapse left Armenia with a fragment of a power system, never meant to function as a stand-alone grid. Plants were built to run on fuel imported from thousands of miles away, from neighbors that, without the Soviet Union, could not offer certainty of supply or terms that Armenia could afford.
The sequence of PPPs was as follows:
Armenia’s experience with water PPPs began in 2000 with a 5-year management contract in the capital city Yerevan, which had a service area of about 1.2 million people;
In 2004, a management contract was put in place for the Armenia Water and Sewerage Company (AWSC), a utility that covered almost 320 cities, 37 urban centers and 283 rural communities with a total population of about 620,000 spread through most of the secondary cities, towns and villages in the rest of the country;
The objectives of the Policy Statement are: (i) to set out the high-level policy framework for the legislative and institutional foundations and changes that are needed to create, promote and sustain a thriving PPP programme in Armenia; and (ii) to encourage best international PPP practice in Armenia. The Government intends to follow best international practice for PPPs, consistent with Armenia's wider legal and institutional framework and adapted to the needs and constraints faced by Armenia.