Dongguan Sewage Treatment Facilities--the Research Of "Government + BOT" Construction Operation Mode

Water environment is a basic guarantee to economic and social sustainable development. Domestic sewage treatment is a fundamental public service provided by modern government with the public. As China’s economy grows sustainably and urbanization develops rapidly, government is under huge pressure in terms of water environment protection and water pollution treatment. Sewage treatment facility (domestic sewage treatment plant and sewage pipe network system) has become indispensable municipal infrastructure. Its construction and operation model involves public management theory including public service, public policy, government regulation and public finance. Since 1990s, as urban public utilities market-oriented reform carries out in the country, market-oriented reform concerning sewage treatment construction and operation model has become one of the themes arousing interest of both theoretical and practice cycle. Mainstream opinion in theoretical cycle includes:carry out market-oriented reform at macro level, government introduce competition mechanism by purchasing public service, and break original mode of government takes on all things or state-owned enterprise monopoly; at micro level, marketable operation is mainly separate factory from pipes, introduce private capital, market sewage plant by franchise, sewage interception pipe network is under government control. As a market economy developed city in China, Dongguan is a representative of this mainstream market-oriented reform theory pilot.This paper takes large-scale sewage treatment facility construction started in Dongguan in 2004 as an example to research on features and effects of "government+ BOT" model adopted by Dongguan, summarizes issues exist in implementing this model over the past 10 years, analyzes causes of these issues one by one, and points out misunderstanding exists in market-oriented reform in terms of theoretical study and local government practice by utilizing public management theory. This paper comes to conclusion on this basis that, previous market-oriented reform represented by Dongguan has produced positive results in both economic benefit and social benefit, due to restrictions by cognitive level and objective condition, there are some partiality and imperfection. Market-oriented reform result is quite different from expectation. These issues are mainly resulted from overriding emphasis placed on changes to public service provider and providing model in the process of reform, over concerning on introduction of private capital and realization of project economic benefit, while ignoring the fundamental goal of "providing the public with sewage collection and treatment services, protecting and improving social benefit of water environment" by construction of water sewage treatment facilities.This paper is divided into five chapters:Chapter 1:introductionChapter 2:introduces "government+BOT" construction operation mode adopted by Dongguan, which means construct by the principle of separating factory from pipes, sewage treatment plant is wholly constructed and operated by BOT model, and sewage interception pipe networks are constructed and maintained by financial investment. This paper discusses formulation background, target setting, means and achievement of this model.Chapter 3:indicates issues exist when Dongguan carries out construction operation model reform, which includes:out-sync factory and pipes limits improvement of pollution control efficiency; government under huge financial pressure, failure to solve capital issues fundamentally; management and development bottleneck of sewage treatment plant is hard to solve. This paper also makes analysis on causes of such issues.Chapter 4:analyzes properties and features of sewage treatment facilities by applying public management theory and existing policies and regulations and points misunderstanding toward "project benefits", "capital source", "marketization" and " government role change " in reform process.Chapter 5:puts forward general idea and strategy on further sewage treatment facility construction and operation model reform, including:make providing better public service a goal---consider effective sewage collection and water environment improvement as fundamental starting point for sewage treatment facility construction and operation; make reform government management system a core---define government role well, clarify public administration responsibilities and rights and obligations of contract subject; rely on governmental capital and state-owned enterprise---give play to state-owned enterprise features and advantages, discover new model of sewage treatment facilities construction and operation.