The worsening of the crisis in 2012 and the cuts in public spending hit the public works market: the amounts of the works put out for tenders fell from 30,7 billion euros in 2011 to 24 in 2012, with a decrease of 21,7%. In the month of December alone, the decline was 28%. Unlike what happened in previous years, the downturn affects both execution-only public works, until yesterday the main protagonists of the crisis, as well as public-private partnerships, the sector on which so much is focused to relaunch the country's infrastructure spending . On the contrary, the collapse of the public and private partnership – based on data from the National Observatory promoted by unioncamere, Dipe-Utfp and Ance and created by Cresme Europa Servizi – is even greater: it goes from 13,3 billion euros of works tender in 2011, down from 8,7 in 2012. A drop of 34,7%. And at the origin of this notable decrease there is above all the collapse, after two expansive years, of the large works of an amount exceeding 50 million euros to be carried out in PPP which, in one year, decreased by 39,7%.
The decline in amounts did not correspond to the decline in demand, which on the contrary continued to grow in 2012 as well, mainly driven by the Municipalities and other entities operating at the local level. The problem, however, is that it is increasingly difficult to materialize. It is no coincidence that things went even worse for awarded PPP works: from 796 tenders awarded in 2011 to 642 in 2012 (-19,3%) and from 8,3 billion euro to 3,8 (-54 %).
Developing analysis, assistance and technical knowledge programs therefore becomes a strategic variable in this very difficult market phase, to outline the possible operations and synergies that can allow the growing demand for public and private partnerships to play a driving role for the relaunch of the Village.
“The public-private partnership – claims the president of Unioncamere, Ferruccio Dardanello – today there is a problem of making the many initiatives undertaken concrete. Some tools have recently been identified, but this process needs to be supported. Already last year the chamber system supported the need to proceed with small but strategic interventions, carefully selected. Faced with the difficulty of development based on major works, it is in fact preferable to invest in making local infrastructural systems more fluid and technologically advanced, so as to create micro-poles of development, around which to build economic recovery".
"In recent years, on these aspects, the interest of the Chambers of Commerce has grown a lot in the issue of broadband and ultra-broadband", highlighted the president of Uniontransport, Antonio Paoletti. "In the awareness of the great opportunities it offers, a real user manual has been developed that can support the Chambers of Commerce and other public administrations in the implementation of infrastructural interventions on the subject of broadband and ultra-broadband networks , financing the intervention in public-private partnership”.
Study summary
The PPP market in Italy in 2012
The application for Public and Private Partnership (PPP), based on the data available from the National Observatory of Public-Private Partnership (www.infopieffe.it), an information and monitoring system of tender notices and awards on the entire panorama of the PPP, in 2012, with the persistence of the economic and financial crisis, continues to grow but the great works collapse and the implementation process becomes increasingly difficult.
In 2012 there were 3.204 tenders for a turnover of 8.682 million. Compared to 2011, there has been a growth in demand which is however matched by a sharp drop in the economic value, a consequence of the more general crisis in the country, which makes it difficult to obtain financial resources through credit, even for private companies. Between 2011 and 2012, the number of tenders increased by 13,15%, from 2.832 to 3.204 tenders, while the turnover decreased by 34,7%, from 13,3 billion euro of amounts put out to tender 8,7. And at the origin of this notable decrease there is above all the collapse, after two expansive years, of the large works of an amount exceeding 50 million euros to be carried out in PPP which, in one year, decreased by 39,7%. In the last year, not only have there been a lack of works of exceptional value, such as the two public works concessions, called in the second half of 2011, for the upgrading and extraordinary maintenance of the A22 Brennero-Modena motorway (3 billion euros) and for the construction of the Rome–Latina Intermodal Corridor and the Cisterna–Valmontone connection (2,7 billion euros), but the number of works worth more than 50 million has also been significantly reduced, from 22 annual tenders in the two-year period 2010-2011 at 14.
