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THE World Bank has recently cited International Container Terminal Services Inc.'s (ICTSI) port projects in South America, Africa and Europe as examples of successful public-private partnerships (PPPs).
These are contractual arrangements between the public sector and the private sector for the private delivery of public infrastructure services in the port sector.
Michel Audige, the World Bank lead transport specialist in the infrastructure and energy services department, said that the various investments that ICTSI has made at Brazil's Suape Container Terminal (SCT), the Madagascar International Container Terminal (MICT) and Poland's Baltic Container Terminal (BCT) have helped raise operational efficiency at these terminals. His comments were contained in a presentation given at the regional workshop on public-private partnership in transport held in Riga, Latvia.
In Mr Audige's study on SCT and BCT, he noted how ICTSI's multimillion dollar investments in container handling equipment have resulted in the growth of container throughput.
For the Toamasina terminal, Mr Audige said that Madagascar is expected to benefit from sizeable financial returns from the port investments and concession fees. He also noted that container-handling tariffs at the terminal have been lowered 20 per cent for reception and 10 per cent for delivery since ICTSI commenced operations there in 2005.
The regional workshop on public-private partnership in transport organised by the World Bank aimed to provide an overview of the role and contribution of PPPs in maintaining, upgrading and extending transport infrastructure, a statement issued by ICTSI said.
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