Overseas PPP: cold comfort in the credit crunch

At temperatures that reach as low as -57º, surrounded by 1.5m-thick ice, 4,000 workers are constructing a 96m-high, 2.7km-long hydroelectric dam. They have just two years to complete this project, which will help power smelters producing 600,000 tonnes of aluminium a year, as well as provide electricity for neighbouring communities.

The Boguchanskoye Energy and Metals Complex is in south-east Siberia, part of the Krasnoyarsk Krai, one of the biggest regions in Russia. I visited this £2.7bn scheme last week, courtesy of United Company Rusal, the Russian mining giant pondering a flotation on the London Stock Exchange.

The project is part of a wider regeneration of the region and is billed by Boris Efimov, the dam's chief executive, as Russia's first public private partnership (PPP). This struck me as rather extraordinary - although there was later some confusion as to whether or not it was the country's or the power industry's first PPP.

The Julius review showed just how strong is the UK's public services industry. We need to be exporting this expertise

Also, the idea of a PPP seems rather loose. This project doesn't really ape PPP structures in the UK, rather it is a project that was started by the Soviet regime and then mothballed due to the failing economy, only to be completed by the private sector two decades later. Public money has recently arrived in the form of £780m for transmission lines.

However, this PPP of sorts clearly enthuses the Russians. Mr Efimov praises it for ensuring that “nobody [state and private sector] tries to do improper functions, everyone does their own”.

I figured this project would have surely have had UK PPP advisers. After all, we keep hearing that big-name companies are sending their expertise overseas as the British PFI market dies, don't we?

If 4,000 brave men and women can work in below-freezing temperatures, surely our PPP experts can pitch for work in cosy offices in regions like Krasnayorsk?

Apparently not, though there is some Japanese involvement here. Very disappointing, I think. The Julius review, published over the summer, showed just how strong is the UK's public services industry: £76bn a year, amounting to 6% of GDP.

We need to be exporting this expertise, particularly to economies whose PPP markets are growing (let's not patronise Russia by lumping it in with “emerging economies”; the great bear arrived quite some time ago).

If 4,000 brave men and women can work in below-freezing temperatures, surely our PPP experts can try to pitch for work in cosy offices in regions like Krasnayorsk? Public relations firms are employing Russian speakers to win work in this country and in neighbouring territories such as Kazakhstan.

The likes of the Big Four's private finance teams should surely be doing the same.