SOLAR FARM TOUR UK Ambassador Laure Baufils (left), CREC chair Edgar Saavedra, Citicore Construction prexy Alreerz Santander and Citicore Solar Batangas 1 project manager Jay Oreta —DORIS DUMLAO-ABADILLA
The United Kingdom has committed to boost trade and investment flows to the Philippines, making a big push for a “significantly underutilized” 5-billion pound (P370-billion) export financing window for British firms building offshore businesses.
UK Ambassador Laure Beaufils says the United Kingdom will “double down” on its engagements with the country using various tools, such as credit, equity or bilateral sovereign deals.
“We don’t have the same historical relationship as perhaps Japan and the United States had. We’ve had to play catch-up a little bit. But I think now we’ve caught up … So we’re here to stay,” she tells journalists.
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On Friday, Beaufils visited three solar farm projects spanning 357 hectares of former sugar plantations in Tuy, Batangas that are being developed by Citicore Renewable Energy (CREC) to initially yield 530 megawatts of energy shortly after Christmas this year.
Through its Mobilist program, the United Kingdom invested $12.5 million when CREC went public last May, becoming its cornerstone investor.
“I think the reputation of the Philippines in terms of being the most liberalized market in renewable energy (RE) is now well-known. So we’ve got a lot more people that are coming and are looking at how they can partner with companies,” Beaufils notes.
The Philippines has allowed 100-percent ownership of RE assets, a big deal for investors seeking better financial and management control of capital-intensive energy assets.
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“There are a lot of UK companies, as well in the region, starting to look at the Philippines, particularly for renewable energy,” she says, adding that water and other infrastructure are likewise key areas of interest.
“I think you’ve got a Department of Energy with ambition and clarity of purpose that has put in place fast quite a lot of really significant regulatory changes and unlocked projects that might have not been able to develop previously. So the private sector reacts really quickly to all of those things, and sees the opportunity, and it also sees the demand is there and it can get things done here,” she explains
Even within Southeast Asia, Beaufils—who has been living in the Philippines for three years—hailed the government’s “proactive” approach to investors.
‘Underutilized’ UKEF
Beaufils says a significant opportunity for collaboration is through export credit arm UK Export Finance (UKEF).
“UKEF has got 5 billion pounds available to support British exporters to the Philippines, basically. And it can do that through a variety of ways … And that money is, in truth, significantly underutilized. So we really want to make a lot better use of it,” she says.
By enabling loans and providing credit guarantees, UKEF can support greater British exports and partnerships with Filipino firms, she says.
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“It’s not specific to renewable energy, but there’s so much happening in this space that we really hope to see more take-up of that. That is, I think, a really exciting opportunity,” she stresses.
“And the last thing to say about export finance is that it really stands out compared to other export finance agencies, in that for a given project, only 20 percent of the content has to be British for it to qualify for export finance for the whole project,” she adds.
Aside from funding support, she says the United Kingdom can contribute expertise in the design stage, for example, in offshore wind farm development.
For Mobilist, she says the main area of interest is green infrastructure, as it tracks the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
She says the United Kingdom is also looking at the pipeline of infrastructure projects identified by the Marcos administration. Also in the works is a government-to-government framework to enable faster investments in state projects.