First Metro to tie up with Chinese bank

Investment house First Metro Investment Corp. plans to team up with China Development Bank (CDB), a state-owned development financial institution, to support large-scale infrastructure projects in the Philippines.

The investment banking arm of the Metrobank Group recently visited China to link up with CDB.

CDB invited Philippine government agencies, power companies and financial institutions for possible business opportunities and cooperation in various infrastructure projects under the administration’s “Build, Build, Build” program.

First Metro president Rabboni Francis Arjonillo said: “CDB’s experience in financing China’s transportation system serves as an inspiration for us to further commit ourselves to back more and bigger infrastructure projects of the Philippine government. They see their involvement in the economic rise of China not confined to financing big-ticket projects but essential to nation building.”

Wang Dongming, deputy director of the Institute of Comprehensive Transportation under the National Development and Reform Commission, said the development of China’s transport system— spanning 30 years—started with the government’s vision that “to ensure sustainable, healthy, and faster socioeconomic development, the transportation industry, as a basic service sector, [must] achieve rapid development.”

This vision was fleshed out via financing support from CDB.