BOT is the abbreviation of English build-operate-transfer, that is, the mode of construction-operation-transfer, which means that the government grants the concession of an infrastructure project to a contractor (usually an international consortium). The contractor is responsible for the project design, financing, construction and operation during the concession period, and recovers costs, repays debts and earns profits. After the concession period, the ownership of the project will be transferred to the government. In essence, BOT financing mode is a special operation mode for government and contractors to cooperate in infrastructure projects.

BOT financing mode is called "franchise financing mode" in China, which means that the state or local government departments authorize the foreign-invested enterprises (including Sino-foreign joint ventures, Sino-foreign cooperation and wholly foreign-owned enterprises) of the signatory parties to undertake the financing, construction, operation and maintenance of public infrastructure (basic industries) projects through franchise agreements; Within the concession period stipulated in the agreement, the project company has the ownership to invest in the construction of facilities, and is allowed to charge appropriate fees to the users of facilities, so as to recover the investment, operation and maintenance costs of the project and obtain reasonable returns; After the franchise expires, the project company will hand over the facilities to the government departments of the contracting parties free of charge.

The concept of p>BOT was formally put forward by Turkish Prime Minister ozal in 1984.

TOT financing means transfer-operate-transfer. Refers to the Chinese side handing over the infrastructure projects that have been completed and put into operation to foreign investors for operation; With the income (cash flow) of the transferred infrastructure projects in the next few years, the Chinese side will get a lump sum of money from foreign investors, and then use this money for the construction of new infrastructure projects; When the operation period expires, the foreign party (investor) will hand over the project to the Chinese side.

There are many ways to finance infrastructure projects, and the typical way is BOT financing. However, under the BOT mode, there is a big contradiction between Chinese and foreign interests, and the focus is mainly on "B". First of all, foreign investors often require a higher return on investment, and some even require that the return on investment should be around 18%; Secondly, when foreign investors enter China's infrastructure construction market through BOT financing, they often require to enter China's infrastructure equipment market and infrastructure management market. In addition, BOT mode is risky, the product price of the project is high, the requirements for supporting legal systems are high, and the success rate is low in the actual operation process. The once popular BOT projects rarely achieve the expected goals, which makes BOT financing methods unable to be implemented and adopted in a large scale.