A P100-billion stimulus fund for infrastructure projects is expected to be ready by January, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), the country?s biggest organization of businessmen, said Friday.

The guidelines for its use are being prepared and that at least one project should start in the first quarter of 2009, PCCI chairman Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. said in a news briefing.

?Government financial institutions?like the Development Bank of the Philippines, Land Bank of the Philippines, and Social Security System?are working on it,? Ortiz-Luis said. ?Some private entities are also cooperating, but they do not want to be identified yet.?

The PCCI has been pushing for such a fund to be used for government and private sector joint-venture projects, which it sees as a way of mitigating the effects of a global recession on the Philippines.

PCCI president Edgardo Lacson said projects that would benefit would include a link-up of the overhead light rail lines in Metro Manila and planned additional lines and others that ?may no longer be accommodated by foreign [fund sources] and too big for local banks.?

?What we are now guarding against is that these projects do not become behest loans,? Lacson said. ?The guidelines should provide for that.?

Ortiz-Luis said the entire amount need not be raised first before the stimulus program could start.

?If there is P40 billion initially, then two or three projects could be started, and the rest of the fund and other projects could come later,? Ortiz-Luis said.

Ortiz-Luis said Philippine economic growth next year would be at least three percent, but that ?we should be given a medal if the economy grew by four percent.? With editing by INQUIRER.net