What is the approval procedure for the pre-investment of PPP projects?

How is the pre-investment project of PPP project approved? What are the pre-investment approval procedures for PPP projects? The following is a brief introduction of the pre-investment approval procedures of PPP projects brought by Zhong Da Consulting for your reference.

(A) the examination and approval system

1. All government investment projects have been approved.

Government investment projects can be divided into two ways: direct investment and capital injection. From the perspective of investment decision-making, the decision-making needs to approve the project proposal and feasibility study report, except in special circumstances, the commencement report will not be approved. At the same time, the preliminary design and budgetary estimate of government investment projects should be strictly examined and approved. This book refers to this part of the examination and approval as the full examination and approval system.

2 enterprises use government subsidies, loans, discount investment projects to take part in the examination and approval system.

If the government adopts investment subsidies, lending and loan interest subsidies for the project, it decides to require only the approval of the fund application report. The specific division of authority and approval procedures shall be studied and formulated by the competent investment department of the State Council in conjunction with relevant parties, and shall be promulgated and implemented after being approved by the State Council. Because the scope of document approval for such projects is relatively small, this book is called partial approval system.

(2) examination and approval system

For enterprise investment projects in the catalogue of investment projects approved by the government, the government only approves major projects and restricted projects from the perspective of safeguarding public interests. For projects that are subject to the approval system for enterprise investment and construction, only the project application report needs to be submitted to the government, and there is no need to go through the examination and approval procedures for project proposal, feasibility study report and commencement report. The project application report submitted by the government to enterprises is mainly examined and approved from the aspects of maintaining economic security, rationally developing and utilizing resources, protecting ecological environment, optimizing major layout, safeguarding public interests, and preventing monopoly.

(3) filing system

Enterprise investment in construction projects, in addition to the implementation of the approval system, other projects, regardless of size, are adopted for the record system. Unless otherwise stipulated by the state, enterprises shall file with the local government investment authorities in accordance with the principle of territoriality. The specific measures for the implementation of the filing system shall be formulated by the provincial people's government. The State Council investment authorities should strengthen the guidance and supervision of the filing work, and prevent disguised approval in the name of filing.

(4) Summary

Regarding the investment procedures of PPP projects, the approval system, approval system or filing system should be adopted. At present, there is no clear stipulation in laws and regulations. Basically, PPP projects have the dual nature of social capital investment projects and government subsidy projects. According to the explanation of the contents of the Decision on the Reform of Investment System, if we look at PPP projects from the perspective of social capital investment, we should adopt the approval system or the filing system; However, from the perspective of government subsidies, if it is a quasi-operating PPP project, the interpretation should adopt a partial approval system; If it is a non-operating PPP project, the project income depends entirely on the government's purchase of services. The decision does not specify what kind of system should be adopted. Therefore, through the above explanation, we can know what kind of system the government's management power and responsibility should adopt in the investment system of PPP projects. At present, there is no clear regulation and it needs to be solved through legislation in the future.

In addition, according to the Notice of the General Office of the National Development and Reform Commission on the Examination and Approval Methods for New Government and Social Capital Cooperation Projects in the National Expressway Network issued on August 20 18 1. The government participates in it through investment subsidies. The newly-built PPP project of the national expressway network in which the government participates by capital injection is still managed according to the examination and approval system, and the feasibility study report is directly submitted for approval. "It can be seen that quasi-operating expressway projects, that is, projects in which the government participates in the form of investment subsidies, adopt the approval system, and the expressway projects of government-invested project companies, that is, projects in which the government participates in the form of capital injection, adopt the approval system; The author believes that it is necessary to discuss the application of the examination and approval system in the latter case; First of all, generally speaking, in terms of projects, the amount of government subsidies is usually more than the amount of government investment in shares, so the subsidy projects with more government burden adopt the approval system, and the shareholding projects with less government burden adopt the approval system, which seems to be somewhat confusing in procedure; In addition, the government shares in the quasi-operating projects of the project company. In addition to participating in the investment, the government also needs to subsidize the project company for the funding gap of the project. For this kind of project with both shares and subsidies, whether the approval system or the examination and approval system should be implemented can not be solved according to the contents of the Notice. Therefore, this book believes that the current investment system is not applicable to PPP projects.

Second, the approval process of government investment projects

At present, China has not directly stipulated the investment approval of PPP projects, but the Ministry of Finance's Evaluation Criteria for the Third Batch of Demonstration Projects requires that new projects must complete the approval procedures such as urban planning, project establishment and feasibility study. Therefore, in practice, PPP projects are often handled in accordance with the approval procedures for government-invested projects. The Measures for the Administration of Direct Investment Projects in the Central Budget (Order No.7 of the National Development and Reform Commission) issued by the National Development and Reform Commission on March 20 14 has detailed provisions on the approval procedures for the establishment and feasibility study of government investment projects, and the project approval is also linked with urban planning to a certain extent, so the relevant contents are also explained as follows:

Urban planning procedure

According to Article 5 of the Urban and Rural Planning Law, urban planning should be based on the national economic and social development planning and linked with the overall land use planning (that is, national economic and social development planning → urban planning → overall land use planning). Planning content is divided into the following four types:

1. Urban master plan

Urban master planning refers to the comprehensive deployment and specific arrangements made by the urban people's government in a certain period of time to determine the scale and development direction of the city, realize the economic and social development goals of the city, rationally use urban land and coordinate the spatial layout of the city according to the national economic and social development plan and the local natural environment, resource conditions, historical situation and current situation. Urban master plan is the first stage of urban planning and the basis of urban construction and management, which is generally called "master plan".

2. Zoning planning

Zoning planning refers to the further arrangement of land use, population distribution, public facilities and urban infrastructure in local areas on the basis of overall urban planning.

3. Regulatory detailed planning

Based on the overall urban planning or zoning planning, it is generally called "control regulations" to determine the control index of land use nature and intensity, the control position of roads and engineering pipelines and the planning requirements of spatial environment control in the construction area.

4. Constructive detailed planning

According to the overall urban planning, zoning planning or regulatory detailed planning, it is formulated to guide the design and construction of various buildings and engineering facilities. It is a kind of detailed urban planning, which is generally called "rule modification". Usually, after having the master plan, control plan and modification plan, the project can be further designed according to these planning indicators.

(2) Project initiation procedure

Project start-up procedure refers to determining which unit is responsible for a project and making a preliminary analysis of the project. Usually in the project initiation stage, the project unit is required to prepare a project proposal, which includes a preliminary analysis of the necessity of project construction, main construction contents, proposed site selection, proposed scale, investment estimation, fund raising, social benefits and economic benefits (see the preceding paragraph of Article 10 of the Measures). After the preparation of the project proposal is completed, the project unit shall submit the project proposal to the examination and approval department for examination and approval according to the prescribed procedures. The project examination and approval department shall approve the project proposal for the project that conforms to the relevant provisions and really needs to be constructed, and send a copy of the approval document to the departments of urban and rural planning, land resources, environmental protection, etc. (refer to Article 1 1 of the Measures).

Who should be the project unit (or sponsor) of PPP project? Is it held by the implementing agency or by the project company? On this issue, the author advocates that the implementing agency should be the project unit, not the project company. The reasons are as follows: First, the procurement process has not yet entered the project establishment stage, the social capital party has not yet been selected, and the project company is even more impossible to exist. Therefore, only the implementing agency can apply for project establishment and serve as the project unit. Second, logically, the project should be considered feasible and necessary to be implemented, and then the feasibility study report passed the examination and approval. Need to set up a project company to implement the project. The project company should not be established before the feasibility study report is approved. Therefore, in the case that the feasibility study report of the project establishment stage has not been approved, only the implementing agency can complete the project approval application. Thirdly, it is argued that the project company should be the project unit because the practice of examination and approval in the past was that the construction unit was the project unit. In PPP mode, the project company plays the role of the construction unit, so the project company should be the project unit. The author believes that this concept has been influenced by the traditional model. In the past, the traditional model was basically that the project construction unit was the project unit, and the approval of PPP projects should be arranged independently, which was not affected by the traditional model.

Although the author's position is that the implementing agency should be the project unit, if there are special circumstances, such as loan demand, property right registration demand, construction contract filing demand, etc. The project company shall be the project unit, or it may agree to change the project unit from the original implementing agency to the project company.

(three) the feasibility study report approval procedures

After the approval of the project proposal, the project unit shall organize the feasibility study according to the approval document of the project proposal, and apply to the departments of urban and rural planning, land and resources, environmental protection, etc. for the examination and approval procedures of planning and site selection, land pre-examination, environmental impact assessment, etc. (refer to Article 12 of the Measures). Prepare a feasibility study report, and comprehensively analyze and demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility, social benefits, energy saving and consumption reduction, comprehensive utilization of resources, ecological environment impact and social stability risks of the project. Implement various construction and operation guarantee conditions, and obtain relevant licenses and review opinions in accordance with relevant regulations (refer to the preceding paragraph of Article 14 of the Measures).

After the feasibility study report is compiled, the project unit shall submit it to the project examination and approval department for approval according to the prescribed procedures, and attach the following documents: (1) site selection opinion issued by the administrative department of urban and rural planning, (2) land use pre-trial opinion issued by the administrative department of land and resources [1], (3) environmental impact assessment approval document issued by the administrative department of environmental protection, (4) energy-saving assessment report of the project, and.

In particular, the issue to be discussed is that the current feasibility study report is designed for the examination and approval of fixed assets investment, and the content of the report is only the construction period without the operation period. The author believes that for PPP projects, the feasibility study report should deal with the technology, performance evaluation and budget estimate during the project operation period, so the budget estimate of the feasibility study report should include the expenses during the construction period and the operation period. At present, many engineering consulting units are unable to deal with the problems related to the operation period, which leads to the fact that the BT project with PPP as its essence has no operation period.

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