STREAMLINE PROCESSES TO APPROVE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STUDIES IN INVESTMENT PROJECTS

January 28, 2022 - Lima.-  The Executive Power is preparing measures to streamline the processes for the execution of private and public-private investment projects.

One of the legislative powers granted by Congress to the Executive indicates that it will be allowed to "incorporate binding and non-binding technical opinionators in the accompaniment of the stage of preparation of the baseline of the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) or its modification."

In this regard, PROINVERSIÓN indicated that although this measure was already contemplated in Legislative Decree No. 1500, issued in May 2020, to date it has not entered into force because the same rule establishes that it is conditioned on the expiration of the State of National Emergency, a situation that currently remains.

Faced with this, PROINVERSIÓN considers it necessary to eliminate this condition to allow the immediate application of the measure.

"This will help reduce the time for approval of environmental management instruments that are required for the development of investment projects," said the Executive Director of PROINVERSIÓN, Rafael Ugaz.

He added that, although in recent years the regulatory framework of PPPs has been strengthened and developed a series of checks and balances that seek to ensure that the projects to be awarded have been properly planned and evaluated, it is necessary that some processes simplify and generate greater predictability to investors regarding the award deadlines, avoiding reprocesses, scope changes and possible duplications.

He said that the possible modifications that have been identified in ProInversión are aimed at making some adjustments within the framework of the private investment promotion system.

"In particular, to better specify the competences and nature of the interventions of the different entities (sectors, regulators, MEF, CGR) in the milestones that must be achieved in each phase of the PPP projects process until they are awarded. Some specific issues have also been identified, such as the requirements to support the budgetary capacity of the projects and some steps that could be simplified in some types of projects," he said.

He also said that in the last year they have been working with the support of multilateral entities, such as the World Bank, the possibility of implementing PMOs (Project Management Office) that accompany the sectors with complex projects or with packages of projects in the portfolio from the formulation stage, in order to optimize processes and have permanent technical assistance.

Infrastructure Plan
Ugaz indicated that the Executive Power has also been working on the implementation of a new approach to promote private investment, which is based on the development of "sustainable infrastructure."

"With this, we seek to ensure that projects are planned, designed, built, operated and maintained in a way that guarantees economic and financial, social, environmental and institutional sustainability throughout the life cycle of the project," he stressed.

He added that, to achieve this goal, there are two major work fronts from the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

In the first place, the revision of the regulatory framework under the delegation of powers, which will allow, among other aspects, to optimize the processes of promotion of private investment, specify the competences of the agents that make up this system and implement a model of Comprehensive Project Management.

"Secondly, the update of the National Infrastructure Plan stands out, which aims to incorporate improvements in planning, without neglecting the advanced part," he noted.

  the paid amounts, those that are credited to an account or are accounted for as an expense. What does the agreement signed between the two countries imply? Said by the specialists consulted by this Newspaper, these agreements seek to avoid that tax costs are doubly applied to companies from a certain country that conduct business in the other nation, in this case between Peru and Japan. (...). They generate legal certainty, greater private investment, and so on.

Source: El Comercio