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A concession or concession agreement is a grant of rights, land or property by a government, local authority, corporation, individual or other legal entity. [1]
Public services such as water supply may be operated as a concession. In the case of a public service concession, a private company enters into an agreement with the government to have the exclusive right to operate, maintain and carry out investment in a public utility (such as a water privatisation) for a given number of years. Other forms of contracts between public and private entities, namely lease contract and management contract (in the water sector often called by the French term affermage), are closely related but differ from a concession in the rights of the operator and its remuneration. A lease gives a company the right to operate and maintain a public utility, but investment remains the responsibility of the public. Under a management contract the operator will collect the revenue only on behalf of the government and will in turn be paid an agreed fee.
A grant of land or a property by the government may be in return for services or for a particular use, a right to undertake and profit by a specified activity, a lease for a particular purpose. A concession may include the right to use some existing infrastructure required to carry out a business (such as a water supply system in a city); in some cases, such as mining, it may involve merely the transfer of exclusive or non-exclusive easements.
In the private sector, the owner of a concession — the concessionaire— typically pays either a fixed sum or a percentage of revenue to the owner of the entity from which it operates. [2] Examples of concessions within another business are concession stands within sporting venues and movie theaters and concessions in department stores operated by other retailers. Short term concessions may be granted as promotional space for periods as short as one day.
Concession agreement may also state the role of an authority and concessionaire and conditions regarding control and ownership of the assets and facilities such as concession can either allow the authority to retain or keep actual ownership of the assets, turning over to the concessionaire and reverting the control and ownership back to an authority once the duration of their concession ended or both the authority and concessionaire control and own the facilities.
The assets and facilities that were built, designated, and acquired prior to the turnover of operations and maintenance from the authority to the concessionaire and are included on a plan of a project that was planned by an authority are predetermined as owned by the authority and to be operated and maintained by the concessionaire upon the turnover of operations and maintenance of the facilities and assets to the concessionaire. Those that were built, acquired and designated by the concessionaire may initially be owned and controlled by the concessionaire and these will be transferred to the authority once its concession duration is ended.
Muhammad Ali of Egypt used contracts called concessions to build cheap infrastructure - dams and railroads - whereby foreign European companies would raise capital, build projects, and collect most of the operating revenue but would provide Ali's government with a portion of that revenue. [3] For other examples of concessions, see Gibbons v. Ogden and United States railroad policy.
Within the European Union, the granting of concessions by public bodies is subject to regulation. Works concessions have been subject to award rules for some time as Directive 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of the EU on public procurement applied to works concessions. The award of services concessions with a cross-border interest has been subject to the principles of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The European Commission had originally included public concession contracts in the Services Directive of 1992, but these were removed from its scope by the European Council. [4] However, the European Parliament and the Council issued a further Directive 2014/23/EU on the award of concession contracts on 26 February 2014, [5] which required EU member states to introduce national legislation covering the award of concession contracts in excess of EUR 5,186,000 awarded on or after 18 April 2016.
In the UK, the equivalent threshold for concession contracts is £4,104,394. Concession contracts granted by public bodies fall within the term "covered procurement" in the Procurement Act 2023. [6]
A public–private partnership is a long-term arrangement between a government and private sector institutions. Typically, it involves private capital financing government projects and services up-front, and then drawing revenues from taxpayers and/or users for profit over the course of the PPP contract. Public–private partnerships have been implemented in multiple countries and are primarily used for infrastructure projects. Although they are not necessary, PPPs have been employed for building, equipping, operating and maintaining schools, hospitals, transport systems, and water and sewerage systems.
Build–operate–transfer (BOT) or build–own–operate–transfer (BOOT) is a form of project delivery method, usually for large-scale infrastructure projects, wherein a private entity receives a concession from the public sector to finance, design, construct, own, and operate a facility stated in the concession contract. The private entity will have the right to operate it for a set period of time. This enables the project proponent to recover its investment and operating and maintenance expenses in the project.
Project delivery methods defines the characteristics of how a construction project is designed and built and the responsibilities of the parties involved in the construction. They are used by a construction manager who is working as an agent to the owner or by the owner itself to carry-out a construction project while mitigating the risks to the scope of work, time, budget, quality and safety of the project. These risks ranges from cost overruns, time delays and conflict among the various parties.
Water privatization is short for private sector participations in the provision of water services and sanitation. Water privatization has a variable history in which its popularity and favorability has fluctuated in the market and politics. One of the common forms of privatization is public–private partnerships (PPPs). PPPs allow for a mix between public and private ownership and/or management of water and sanitation sources and infrastructure. Privatization, as proponents argue, may not only increase efficiency and service quality but also increase fiscal benefits. There are different forms of regulation in place for current privatization systems.
Project finance is the long-term financing of infrastructure and industrial projects based upon the projected cash flows of the project rather than the balance sheets of its sponsors. Usually, a project financing structure involves a number of equity investors, known as 'sponsors', and a 'syndicate' of banks or other lending institutions that provide loans to the operation. They are most commonly non-recourse loans, which are secured by the project assets and paid entirely from project cash flow, rather than from the general assets or creditworthiness of the project sponsors, a decision in part supported by financial modeling; see Project finance model. The financing is typically secured by all of the project assets, including the revenue-producing contracts. Project lenders are given a lien on all of these assets and are able to assume control of a project if the project company has difficulties complying with the loan terms.
Mineral rights are property rights to exploit an area for the minerals it harbors. Mineral rights can be separate from property ownership. Mineral rights can refer to sedentary minerals that do not move below the Earth's surface or fluid minerals such as oil or natural gas. There are three major types of mineral property: unified estate, severed or split estate, and fractional ownership of minerals.
Government procurement or public procurement is undertaken by the public authorities of the European Union (EU) and its member states in order to award contracts for public works and for the purchase of goods and services in accordance with principles derived from the Treaties of the European Union. Such procurement represents 13.6% of EU GDP as of 2018, and has been the subject of increasing European regulation since the 1970s because of its importance to the European single market.
Government procurement or public procurement is the procurement of goods, services and works on behalf of a public authority, such as a government agency. Amounting to 12 percent of global GDP in 2018, government procurement accounts for a substantial part of the global economy.
The National Transmission Corporation is a Philippine government-owned and controlled corporation created in June 26, 2001 by the Electric Power Industry Reform Act and a corporate entity wholly owned by the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management (PSALM). It is the owner of the country's power grid and its related assets and facilities since March 1, 2003, and also served as operator of the grid from March 2003 until the turnover of the grid's operations and maintenance to the privately owned National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) on January 15, 2009.
Water supply and sanitation in Spain is characterized by universal access and good service quality, while tariffs are among the lowest in the EU. Almost half of the population is served by private or mixed private-public water companies, which operate under concession contracts with municipalities. The largest of the private water companies, with a market share of about 50% of the private concessions, is Aguas de Barcelona (Agbar). However, the large cities are all served by public companies except Barcelona and Valencia. The largest public company is Canal de Isabel II, which serves the metropolitan area of Madrid.
Water supply and sanitation in Turkey is characterized by achievements and challenges. Over the past decades access to drinking water has become almost universal and access to adequate sanitation has also increased substantially. Autonomous utilities have been created in the 16 metropolitan cities of Turkey and cost recovery has been increased, thus providing the basis for the sustainability of service provision. Intermittent supply, which was common in many cities, has become less frequent. In 2004, 61% of the wastewater collected through sewers was being treated. In 2020 77% of water was used by agriculture, 10% by households and the rest by industry.
Water supply and sanitation in Malaysia is characterised by numerous achievements, as well as some challenges. Universal access to water supply at affordable tariffs is a substantial achievement. The government has also shown a commitment to make the sector more efficient, to create a sustainable funding mechanism and to improve the customer orientation of service providers through sector reforms enacted in 2006. The reform creates a modern institutional structure for the water sector, including an autonomous regulatory agency, an asset management company and commercialised state water companies that have to reach certain key performance indicators that will be monitored by the regulatory agency. The government has also stated its intention not to embark on new private sector contracts for water provision, after a bout of such contracts during the 1990s showed mixed results.
Water supply and sanitation in Italy is characterized by mostly good services at prices that are lower than in other European countries with similar income levels. For example, the average monthly residential water and sewer bill in Italy is 20 Euro compared to 31 Euro in France. According to the OECD, water in Italy has been underpriced for a long time. With about 240 liter per day, per capita water use for residential uses in Italy is higher than in Spain or in France, where it is about 160 liter per day. Water resources in Italy are distributed unevenly, with more abundant resources in the North and scarcer resources in the South. Most water withdrawals are for agriculture and industry, with only 18 percent of water withdrawals made for drinking water supply. About one third of the water withdrawn for municipal supply is not billed to the customers because of leakage, malfunctioning water meters and water theft.
The water and sewer system of Bucharest, the capital of Romania with a population of 2.3 million, was privatized in 2000 through a 25-year concession to the French company Veolia. The impact of the concession is mixed. During the first years almost 3,000 employees were laid off and water bills increased four-fold. There were improvements in service quality and efficiency, but most of the improvements occurred before privatization and improvements in service quality since privatization are not well documented. Privatization placed the burden of financing the renewal of the infrastructure directly on water consumers rather than on taxpayers. The private water utility owned by Veolia, Apa Nova București, is considered one of the most profitable Romanian utilities.
The Lage Landen Lijn was a proposed international rail service between The Hague and Brussels, which was to be introduced on 15 December 2013.
Public–private partnership in Canada is a form of alternative service delivery that involves a formal, collaborative arrangement between the public and private sectors, typically of a long-term nature. Public–private partnerships are commonly used for infrastructure projects related to healthcare, transportation, the environment, justice and correction, recreation and culture, and education.
The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) is an agency of the Federal Government of Nigeria responsible for the development and implementation of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) framework for the provision of infrastructure services.
The Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority is the Competition regulator in Finland. It is the regulatory authority of Politics of Finland which works in the field of competition and consumer rights protection. The purpose of the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority is to create healthy and effective markets in which companies and other operators act responsibly and in keeping with consumers' interests.