Thai Lawyers Attend The Asia Clean Energy Forum 2016
From Monday the 6th to Friday the 10th of June the Asian Clean Energy Forum 2016 took place in Manila organized by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) with the support of Usaid, Korean Energy Agency, Australian Government, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Government of Canada, Sweden and Spain among others.
A delegation of lawyers and consultants of Juslaws & Consult (J&C) traveled to Philippines and attended the event, one of the most reputable congresses of renewable energy in Asia since 11 years ago.
On 7th of June, during the “Waste to Energy, transforming strategy into reality” our colleague Mr. Heinrich Seul delivered two lectures with the titles “Differences in RDF Processing in Europe and Asia, Lessons Learned and Successes” and “Advantages of Private Sector built, owned and operated Waste Power Plants, How to succeed, success stories and relevance to DMC Solutions”. During the seminar there was an interesting debate on the technological and feasibility side and the difficulties of the private participation in public projects through PPP in several projects due a wide number of key reasons.
On 8th of June it was a good opportunity to discuss with government officials and bankers the strengths and weaknesses of the regulatory framework in Thailand and Asean community on solar, photovoltaic, wind and biomass energy. The same day Mr. Bartosz Wojszczyk President of Decision Point Global, Barbara Kreissler of Philips Lighting, Ms. Rachel Kyte United Nations Secretary General’s Special Representative, Sustainable Energy for All Initiative and Mr. Tae Young Kim, Vice-President of the Korea Energy Agency gave notable speeches on the importance of the renewable energy sector for the development of South East Asia. In particular it was memorable the lecture of Ms. Rachel Kyte sending a message to all the government officials sitting at the plenary to realize that nowadays we have already the technology to bring energy to every single place of South East Asia and develop fast our societies integrating the undeveloped sectors.
In later sessions our lawyers learned from some particular infrastructure and energy projects taken place in the municipalities of Cebu (Philippines), Colombo (Sri Lanka), Karachi (Pakistan), Quang Binh (Vietnam) and Bangkok (Thailand) with consultants, officials, diplomats and engineers and meet different Asian and European commercial and private bankers to discuss the bankability and financial support of some current power plant projects and ongoing solar farms in the Kingdom of Thailand and Myanmar.
In the last two days the discussion moved toward investing in energy, transport and energy, smart cities, innovation and technology. Mr. Stephen Groff Vice President of the Asian Development Bank closed the forum on Friday the 10th.
After our exchange of opinions and debate during the Asian Clean Energy Forum 2016 we reaffirm our vision explained recently by our Managing Partner Mr. Yuthana Promsin at the Thailand 2016 annual report of Oxford Business Group that the Public–private partnership (PPP) laws in Thailand (there is a law authorizing PPP in Thailand since 1992) and South East Asia should be deeply amended in order to facilitate a more clear, controlled access to enhance the consolidation of key energy infrastructure projects with the participation of foreign and local private investment.
Juslaws & Consult’s legal practice has been oriented in the last 5 years in to the renewable energy sector with a solid experience in solar, waste to energy and photovoltaic working for leading Thai, German, Spanish and South Korean energy companies among others in terms of bidding preparation, public procurement, compliance, finance, consulting and legal advice.
