NEWS

Government gets behind public-private partnerships

The government has launched a charm offensive to entice municipalities across Greece to use public-private partnerships, or PPPs, to accelerate investment and spur growth in the debt-hit country, Kathimerini understands.

Speaking at a conference in Athens on Tuesday, the Development Ministry’s general secretary for PPPs Nikos Matzoufas said that Greece ranked fourth among its EU peers in the number of joint contracts signed between state authorities and private enterprises in the first half of 2014.

He said that three PPP contracts worth 130 million euros were signed over that period. They were the first such contracts to be signed since 2009.

“Getting a private company involved in a project does not mean that you privatize [that project]. In PPP projects the state maintains ownership of the infrastructure while also monitoring the services provided by the private firm,” he said.

At the same conference, Deputy Development Minister Notis Mitarakis said that PPPs have built 14 schools in seven Attica municipalities, while the construction of seven fire stations, another PPP project, is near completion.

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