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Guest-column
By: Álvaro González Rodríguez
FCC Construcción
Concession Manager
The importance of concession
in the development
of Spain’s infrastructures
Since the middle of the last century, infras-
tructure concessions have been one of the
growth drivers of the Spanish economy.
The first one dates back to 1953 when the
Guadarrama tunnel (Madrid) concession
was awarded. There are currently more
than 3,700 km of concessions (90% in ope-
rations). The total resources involve amount
to 17.86 billion Euros, creating 5,233 direct
jobs.
Spanish concession companies are world
leaders and export their knowledge and
experience to other countries. According
to the prestigious magazine Public Works
Financing, of the twelve leading companies
worldwide, six are Spanish and rank among
the top four companies. Globalvía, FCC’s
concession subsidiary ranks second.
FCC Construcción’s role in this business is
worth mentioning since it is one of the lea-
ding infrastructure developers in the world,
has more than 100 years of experience
collaborating with the public sector, and
for more than two decades has played a
leading role in the sector. It manages, di-
rectly and indirectly, through Globalvia, 50
concessions worth nearly 10 billion Euros.
During the 60s and early 70s, concession
activity played a very important role. Under
this scheme, more than 1,500 kilometres
of highways were built. In the absence of a
specific regulatory framework, the Law on
construction, conservation, and exploita-
tion of highways under a concession sche-
me came into force in 1972.
At the end of the 70s and early 80s, there
were major funding problems due to the oil
crisis and this led to a sharp drop in revenue
because of less traffic and higher costs. In
1984, as a consequence, the State was
forced to recue three highways through the
Empresa Nacional de Autopistas (ENA).
This was a key event for the future develo-
pment of the sector since, combined with
the experience accumulated over the years,
it gave a boost to infrastructures in Spain.
As a result, since the 90s until 2005, more
than 2,200 kilometres of highways were de-
veloped and 2.5 million Euros were spent in
public services (hospitals, court complexes,
etc.).
A relevant milestone was the approval in
2003 of the Law governing the concession
contract for public works. The Law on Pu-
blic Sector Contracts, enacted in 2007, in-
corporated the main provisions of the 2003
law and increased its scope.
The global economic crisis has had an im-
pact on the sector and has hampered the
development of new infrastructure pro-
jects mainly because of the difficulties of
obtaining funding (80% of investments are
financed with borrowings). It has also affec-
ted concessions in operations since traffic
dropped to unforeseen levels.
If, on top of these problems at the global
scale, we add the substantial increase in
the cost of internal expropriations, we arrive
at situation in the sector with great imba-
lances in the risk transfer system, which
has led to the problems currently affecting
nearly ten concessions.
FCC Construcción
is one of the
leading developers
of infrastructure
concessions