On February 12 (Wednesday), Second Vice Minister Kim Yoon-sang attended the launch ceremony of the Special Infrastructure Fund for Public-Private Partnership Projects and stated “This year, with the launch of the ‘Special Infrastructure Fund for Equity Investment’ (Special Infrastructure Fund), the government will explore additional public-private partnership projects and push them forward with greater speed.”
The ‘Special Infrastructure Fund’ is the first public-private partnership policy fund, created with 100 billion KRW each contributed by the Korea Development Bank and the Infrastructure Credit Guarantee Fund, totaling 200 billion KRW. It will be managed with the purpose of investing in equity for public-private partnership projects.
VM Kim stated that “the ‘Special Infrastructure Fund’ will play a catalytic role in revitalizing public-private partnership projects”, and added that “With the fund’s creation of 200 billion KRW, the government will support the swift advancement of approximately 13 trillion KRW worth of public-private partnership projects that had either been delayed due to lack of capital or had not started at all; the benefits enjoyed by the public are expected to greatly increase due to the development of new projects and the acceleration of existing ones.” The fund is anticipated to alleviate the financial burden compared to general revenue-based public-private partnership projects (BTO) and play a catalytic role in attracting financial investors for lease-type public-private partnership projects (BTL), where investor recruitment has been delayed.
Along with it, VM Kim emphasized that “This year, the government is making various efforts to boost public-private partnership projects; the guarantee limit of the Infrastructure Credit Guarantee Fund (1 trillion KRW → 2 trillion KRW) will be raised so that the uncertainty in financing large public-private partnership projects can be reduced and the benefits of lower borrowing rates will be further expanded.” He also pointed out that “By lowering the risk weight for bank investments in revenue-based public-private partnership projects (BTO), the capacity for investment in public-private partnership projects has been increased.”
Furthermore, he stressed that “The government will strive to ensure that the ‘Amendment to the Act on Public-Private Partnerships in Infrastructure’ which aims to invigorate public offering infrastructure fund for infrastructure, is passed in the National Assembly by the first half of this year.”
Last but not least, he stated that “During the first half of the year, the government aims to inject vitality into domestic demand and the construction sector through the early execution of public-private partnership projects, with a record-high amount of 2.8 trillion KRW (54% of the execution target of 2.8 trillion KRW for 2025), in addition to the fast-track fiscal execution; to this end, strengthened efforts will be made to raise the execution rate for 2025 and find ways to stimulate investment by holding site visits and regular meetings to continuously communicate with a range of people involved.”
Please refer to the attached files.
