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Core Training Program (CTP)
The First Core Training Program (CTP) of EAPIRF commenced on 14th November 2007, after the close of the AGM and the Workshop on Competition Policy and Regulation. The CTP was attended by 35 participants from 12 countries of the EAP region representing 26 organisations. The participant list covered almost all the key sectors of infrastructure covering water, power, oil and gas, transport and telecom representing regulators, utilities, anti monopoly committee, competition and consumer commission, planning departments, etc.
The objective of the CTP is to provide training to the participants to help develop the technical skills required in infrastructure development, especially in the economic regulation of infrastructure and the basic approaches to regulation. The five day course covered the economic principles and techniques for revenue and tariff regulation.
Starting on November 14th the training set off by discussing the trends in growth of infrastructure services in EAP region and covered the review of reforms and initiatives. Further on the program covered the basic economic and financial principles involved in fixing tariffs and approvals of cost by regulators.
The topics covered are the basic principles of economics, economic rationale for regulation and regulatory objectives, demand forecasting, opex review, asset valuation, capital expenditure review, cost of capital, rate of return regulation. On the aspects of revenue determination the topics covered were tariff structures and tariff adjustments and service quality measures.
To encourage group participation the participants were divided into groups and group discussions were called for to share experiences from each country/sector on the presentations covered during the day. Further on the basics also covered Introduction to Modeling for the Regulation of Utilities and ratio analysis.
To provide hands on experience of the topics covered in the presentations, the groups were required to undertake short team exercises using laptops. The groups were required to work together on developing small models based on the exercises circulated. The participants showed great interest in applying the concepts learned during the day. The exercises encouraged the groups to raise question on how to apply the topics presented in the sessions.
The close of the program called for a group presentation on running a tariff review. For this each group represented regulator, licensee (company), Minister of Energy, small consumer group and large consumer group. During this the participants enthusiastically applied all the learning’s of the program in designing new tariffs. The presentations listed the objectives for setting tariffs, covering the objective of safeguarding consumer interests and financial sustainability of the licensee.
Click here to view presentations made at the CTP.
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