| Summary: | 碩士 === 朝陽科技大學 === 營建工程系碩士班 === 97 === Public investment in infrastructure has promotive effects on economic development. The i-Taiwan 12 Projects, being a new economic development blueprint for Taiwan, call for the investment of NTD3.99 trillion over eight years since 2008. However, NTD1.34 trillion, ie. about one-third of the total, is expected to contributed by the private sector. Compared with the annual cumulative contract prices of the private investment promotion projects from 2002 to 2008, such investment from the private sector should be a tough goal. The private participation model implemented in infrastructure and public service projects can be divided into two major systems: “concession model” and “PFI (Private Finance Initiative) model“. The concession model has been used in Taiwan with the promulgation of the Law for Promotion of Private Participation in Infrastructure Projects on 2000. The PFI model, first adopted by United Kingdomon 1992, has been introduced in more than 30 countries. It has not been applicable in Taiwan yet, but it is broadly regarded as positive to rapidly push ahead with the investment on infrastructure and public services, especially those with high public interests but low self-liquidity. Therefore, it is an important issue for Taiwan government to investigate how to introduce PFI model into domestic private participation system for social capital investment.
On the other hand, for each infrastructure or public service projects, either the economic or the financial feasibility assessment plays a key role in helping the public authorities to evaluate the value of the project and to choose the optimal procurement model. Depending on different capital structures under various procurement models, the projects should be analyzed by different principles, for example, the discount rate. The influence of the discount rate over the the results of project evaluation can be significant even to change the conclusion. However, there exists no standard for the calculation or setting of the discount rate, which means there is a lack of fair and consistent comparable basis among different projects or different proposals from bidders. For the above reason, this research first collected the current conditions of discount rate setting in various procurement systems from real cases, and found out the evidence of misusing the discount rate due to the absence of the setting rule. Then the study put the focus on how the discount rate should be set in PFI projects. The process and parameters of discount rate setting in England, Australia and Ireland are reviewed, and furthermore the domestic government structure and institutional environment are contrasted with the three countries. The findings from the comparison show that for the current structure of the domestic central government, the competent authority of PFI system could be a controversial issue, so that the responsibility of discount rate setting could not clearly be recognized as well. It might be the foremost problem facing the government as introducing PFI system into Taiwan.
Besides, According to the domestic institutional conditions, this research suggested short-term and long-term strategies for establishing the standards of discount rate setting. For short term, the way that Ireland government adopts might be applicable but not approapriate enough if without transparent setting course. On the other hand, although the procedure adopted by Australian government could not be duplicated in Taiwan for the absence of historical data collection about the risks and their consequenses in infrastructure projects, some parameters for calculating the discount rate could be substituted or estimated by experienced public agencies or experts in construction industry. For long term, through systematically cumulating historical data of PFI projects, this research regards that the CAPM model learned from Australian government could be reformed, and would be a reasonable method to set the discount rate for PFI projects.
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