PH, Japan to firm up financing for P315-B infra projects

The Duterte administration’s economic managers and the Japanese government will firm up next week financing commitments for P315.4 billion in big-ticket infrastructure projects, the Department of Finance said yesterday.

In a statement, the DOF said the Philippines-Japan High-Level Committee on Infrastructure and Economic Cooperation will meet in Tokyo on Sept. 25, their third after the meetings held also in Tokyo in March and in Manila in July.

Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III, who co-chairs the Philippine side with Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia, said the upcoming latest round of meeting would focus on ways to speed up the processing and implementation of timelines of the flagship infrastructure projects being eyed for possible Japanese financing.

Pernia had said that eight projects would be pitched for financing by the Japanese government, namely: Cavite Industrial Area Flood Management Project; Circumferential Road 3 Missing Link Project; Dalton Pass East Alignment Alternative Road Project; Malitubog-Maridagao Irrigation Project Phase 2; Malolos-Clark Railway Project; Metro Manila Subway Project Phase 1; Pasig Marikina Channel Improvement Project (Phase 4), as well as the Road Network Development Project in Conflict-Affected Areas in Mindanao.

“We want to discuss with them how we can fast-track the process of implementing the projects,” Dominguez said.