High-Level PH-Japan Infra Meeting Set in Manila Wednesday

Philippine and Japanese officials will hold their sixth meeting on infrastructure and economic cooperation this Wednesday (Nov. 21) in Manila to discuss the processing of new concessional loan agreements that would provide the Duterte administration’s “Build, Build, Build” program with additional financing support from Japan, the Department of Finance (DOF) said in a statement on Monday.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III will chair the Philippine side in the 6th meeting of the Philippines-Japan High-Level Joint Committee on Infrastructure Development and Economic Cooperation, which will also include key members of the government’s “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure team.

The Japanese side will be led by Dr. Hiroto Izumi, who is Special Adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Since its first meeting in March last year, the joint committee has made substantial progress in expediting the processing of approvals for Japanese loans for projects under President Duterte’s centerpiece program “Build, Build, Build”.

The latest loan agreement signed between Japan and the Philippines on the rehabilitation of the decrepit Metro Rail Transit-Line 3 System (MRT-3) was processed in less than three months under the “fast and sure” approach adopted by both countries.

The board of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) chaired by President Duterte gave the go-signal for the MRT-3 rehabilitation project on Aug. 22, which was then followed 77 days later by the signing of the loan agreement last November 8.

The MRT-3 rehabilitation project will cost a total of PHP21.96 billion (approximately USD413 million), of which JPY38.1 billion (about PHP18.76 billion or USD362 million) will be funded by an Official Development Assistance (ODA) loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The remaining amount of PHP3.19 billion (about USD62 million) will be funded locally.

Aside from the MRT-3 rehabilitation project, the two countries also signed just a month ago an agreement extending to the Philippines a 4.37 billion-yen loan (about PHP2.10 billion or USD40.61 million) to help fund the second phase of the New Bohol Airport Construction and Sustainable Environmental Protection Project in Panglao Island covering the expansion of its runway and passenger terminal building.

In line with the “fast and sure” approach, Dominguez pointed out that the Philippine government had acted swiftly in processing the necessary requirements for the supplemental loan, which, from the time the NEDA Board approved it on June 19, 2018 up to the Oct. 8 signing, took only a short period of four months to be formalized.

Another high-impact project with Japan that adhered to the two countries’ “fast and sure” principle is the first phase of the Metro Manila Subway, which underwent the processing of approvals in September 2017 to the signing of the JPY104.53 billion loan agreement (representing the first tranche) in March this year, or a period of just six months.

The country’s first-ever subway is the single biggest flagship project under the “Build, Build, Build” initiative. (DOF PR)