Success Factors for Public-Private Partnership Infrastructure Projects in Vietnam

Infrastructure projects require a great amount of capital investment resulting from their tremendous size, complexity, and risk. Due to the limitation of public finances, the private sector is invited to participate in infrastructure project development. The private sector can entirely or partially invest in an infrastructure project in the form of a public-private partnership (PPP) scheme, which has been an attractive option for several developing countries, including Vietnam. Unfortunately, despite the PPP scheme will improve project efficiencies and attract capital investments of private investors, the success of PPP implementation is not guaranteed. This paper investigates the critical success factors (CSFs) of PPP infrastructure projects in Vietnam. Relevant data were collected through in-depth interviews with six PPP experts and questionnaire surveys with 150 interviewees and then analyzed by the word cloud technique and the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test. The CSFs were ranked based on the viewpoints of the public sector, the private sector, and the PPP consultants. The outcomes show that there was no significant difference in the perceptions of all three parties concerning the success factors for PPP infrastructure projects in Vietnam. The top five critical success factors are (1) timely land acquisition and appropriate compensation, (2) financial capacity of the private sector, (3) effective project management, (4) favorable and complete legal framework and regulations, and (5) financial feasibility and attraction. Recognizing the CSFs is indispensable to ensure the success of PPP infrastructure project implementation.