Infrastructure will remain within state responsibility – Igor Levitin
Transport infrastructure will always stay within the state responsibility, IAA PortNews journalist cites Russia’s former Transport Minister and Presidential Adviser Igor Levitin as saying at the panel discussion within the framework of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum – 2013.
“Infrastructure will always stay within the state responsibility but the state should set parameters and targets, strategic interests are also to be always determined by the state,” Levitin said.
According to ex-Minister of Transport, in the context of limited budget (the situation of all countries) there are 2 ways: privatization and private-public partnership. However, Levitin sees the drawbacks of privatization in infrastructure monopolization and shifting all the risks on private investors.
Levitin thinks that the key law to create the foundation for private-public partnership in Russia was the Law on Concessions of 2005. The amendments into the Law are under consideration today.
