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José Mayor,
FCC Chairman,
participates in the
Seventh Meeting of
the lnfrastructure
Sector
The infrastructure works-
hop held in Madrid on 26
March last was just the
latest in a series of annual
events that managers from
major builders do not want
to miss.
José Mayor, chairman of FCC Construc-
ción, participated in the round table on the
sector’s outlook and the strategies of lea-
ding companies. In his speech, he stressed
that public investments in infrastructures
have always been essential to keep eco-
nomic activity going, and he reminded his
audience that falling investment in civil en-
gineering works has crippled GDP growth
before.
He mentioned that in previous meetings of
representatives of the Infrastructure Sector,
he had shown the relationship between
GDP curves and the growth rates of resi-
dential construction and civil works. The
conclusion, he said, had been that even
though negative growth rates in residential
building had not dragged down GDP, a re-
duction in civil works had always had a ne-
gative impact on GDP growth. This is why
he insisted and advocated public-private
sector partnerships and that Chapter 6 of
the national budget should be left unchan-
ged as far as possible.
Minister of Development Ana Pastor deli-
vered the keynote address of the Seventh
Infrastructure Sector Meeting organized by
Deloitte. She announced that the govern-
ment is looking at up-to-fifty-percent co-
financing for new projects under the public/
private partnership model, and she explai-
ned that the new model for concessions will
rely on revising concessions’ maximum du-
ration and sharing the risks between con-
cession receivers and concession givers.
Second round table
The second round table dealt with the con-
cession sector’s outlooks and the oppor-
tunities in public/private partnerships. Luis
Sánchez, general manager of Globalvia
Infraestructuras, asserted that concessions
must not be allowed to turn into auctions.
For this reason, he asked the government
to speak clearly and act responsibly and
not to hang the risks involved in conces-
sion projects on the concession holders.
He said concession contracts need to be
revised regularly in order to adjust to new
market conditions.
The event was brought to a close by Juan
Lazcano, president of the National Building
Confederation, who reminded his audience
that the public works tenders announced
by the different levels of government closed
in 2011 at 13.76 billion Euros, the lowest
investment volume of the last fifteen years.