The Government of Nepal will establish a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center to make investment arrangements for infrastructure and service-based projects. The center will start the process of making investment arrangements from the upcoming fiscal year, according to the National Planning Commission (NPC). The government plans to eventually expand the center as a department. The NPC is currently finalizing details of the center’s structure in coordination with the Finance Ministry and the Ministry of General Administration.

The center in the first stage will facilitate projects of PPP model that require investment of over NPR100 million (US$900,000). Experts about infrastructure and investment will also be included in the center. Staffers of the line ministries that implement the projects will also be provided necessary training for negotiation with the private sector and facilitation.

The PPP cell formed at the NPC will do three main works. It will function as a resource center to move forward as per international practice and experience about PPP, as a unit for legal facilitation for implementation of legal provisions for PPP, and build capacity of government bodies.

The center is being formed as the private sector needs to be assured about projects and be taken into confidence for investment. The decisions about the projects to be moved forward as per the PPP policy will be taken through the body. The government has already made PPP policy public. 

The center will also make investment modality clear, according to the NPC, after formation of necessary legal and administrative mechanisms. The center will move the projects–to which the government cannot allocate resources immediately and where the private sector is attracted–forward through PPP model, and work in a way that the government, and private and public sectors are delegated equal responsibilities about the risks and profit of the projects.

The government in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year has mentioned the issue of promoting domestic and foreign investment as the fourth objective. It talks about injecting pace into the shrunken economy through budget implementation and create grounds for promotion of private sector investment. The government estimates that the private sector will make stable investment of NPR1.327 trillion (US$ 12.29 billion) by the end of 13th Plan.