A couple of projects being financed by the World Bank (WB) progressed in recent months while the Department of Finance on Wednesday said foreign borrowings remained prudent and supportive of economic recovery.
While earlier World Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) reports lamented delays in the Metro Manila flood management project at the height of stringent COVID-19 lockdowns last year, the Washington-based lender’s latest implementation status and results report showed rollout was now “moderately satisfactory”—an improvement from “moderately unsatisfactory” previously.
The World Bank, the AIIB and the Philippine government have been cofinancing the $500-million project jointly being implemented by the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority.
However, loan disbursements remained small—out of the World Bank’s $207.6-million financing for this project, only $7.32 million or 3.5 percent were disbursed to date.
In March, the AIIB reported that only $6.55 million out of its also $207.6-million loan for the flood control project had been spent as of December 2020.
This project will benefit 1.7 million residents near 56 “potentially critical” drainage systems in a total of 11,110 hectares of flood-prone areas in Metro Manila. As for the customs modernization project, the World Bank said rollout had been “satisfactory” as the Bureau of Customs (BOC) “made good progress in advancing toward implementation.”
Modernization project
Procurement for the customs modernization project was ongoing, but the $88.28-million loan remained intact and unspent so far.
The BOC was aiming to achieve full modernization of its processes and systems by 2024.
In a statement on Wednesday, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said “the Philippines has maintained its strong fiscal position under the Duterte administration by ensuring that the government can always afford to pay its foreign borrowings, which have proven to be an effective tool for productive spending to drive economic growth and ensure immediate funding for emergencies, such as the current COVID-19 crisis.”
The latest Bureau of the Treasury data showed that at the end of the first quarter, foreign debt as a share of gross domestic product slightly declined to 17 percent from 17.3 percent in end-2020.
National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said the Development Budget Coordination Committee last Tuesday kept the 2021 gross borrowings program at a record P3.03 trillion. —Ben O. de Vera