PSI latest privatization watch bulletin is now out , just some of the stories from the Asia Pacific Region below including those on Water and PPPs and the ADB
http://www.world-psi.org/en/privatization-watch-032017
India
Writing in India Water Portal, Makarand Purohit looks at “what's wrong with water privatization?” and at its history. “The drive to privatize the water sector in India accelerated after the year 2000, when the Government of India adopted various reforms suggested by international financial institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.” Water law expert Pradeep Purandare says "the public-private partnerships in India have so far failed to improve water services in the country, and there is no private sector regulation act and rules to regulate the functioning of the private sector."
India
Trade unions have held a massive rally to protest government plans to sell stakes in 10 major companies. Centre of Indian Trade Unions National General Secretary Tapan Sen, MP, “alleged that the move was part of the concerted efforts of Union government to allow back-door entry to corporates like Reliance in the defence-related production sector. He said workers’ unity would help protect the PSUs from corporate greed to misappropriate government land and resources. INTUC State president R. Chandrasekharan, HMS leader Thampan Thomas, and M.B. Rajesh, MP, also used their speeches to stress the need for workers’ unity to protect the PSUs. [Public sector companies]”
India
Solid waste management may be privatized in Bengaluru. “The main hurdle in the implementation of waste segregation and decentralised management is the nexus between contractors, officials and corporators, said Megha Shenoy from the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment.”
New Zealand
Patrick Nolan, the principal advisor for economics and research of the New Zealand Productivity Commission, looks at the complex issue of public sector productivity. Whereas private sector productivity is usually measured by price, this is not suitable for public services evaluation. “In contrast, public services typically lack, or at best poorly reflect, prices as they are provided free or are subsidised. Hence prices cannot be used as proxies for the value the services generate and some other way is required to combine diverse outputs into a single index (a weighting schedule). Quite often cost weights are used but these reflect the value placed on the service by the producer and imply that higher costs equal higher quality. (…) Done properly efforts along these lines will support public sector productivity growth and stronger public services.”
Sri Lanka
C. R. de Silva, who was “responsible at World Bank headquarters for program development in, and loan negotiations with, several miracle economies of East Asia Region for some 20 years” analyzes Sri Lanka’s fealty to IMF development strategies and compares its performance to those of East Asian countries which “determined that the IMF's prescription based on economic liberalization, privatization, open markets, fiscal discipline, price stability, founded on the utmost confidence in unregulated markets, to lead a poor country's development effort, to the near exclusion of a dominant government role, was destined to fail in a reasonably short time frame.” He concludes that “the carrying out of IMF's policy advice on enhanced indirect taxation and privatization/PPP have already led to social tensions and may lead progressively to civil strife in due course, as recent events down south forecast.”
Sri Lanka
Workers are protesting plans to privatize government estates.
Thailand
The Bangkok Post reports that the government will borrow heavily to support new infrastructure projects. Finance Minister Apisak Tantivorawong says “for the rest of the funding, 20% will come from the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme, 10% from the government's budget expenditure, 2% from the Thailand Future Fund (TFF) initial public offering and the remainder from state enterprise income.”
