The Philippines will submit the formal letters of request for the priority projects that it would like to implement in cooperation with China in time for the official visit of Chinese Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng to Manila later this month.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, who led last month’s Philippine mission to China, said he had informed Gao in Beijing that the formal requests for the projects for possible Chinese financing, either through grants or loans, would be submitted before the Commerce Minister arrives here for a two-day visit on Feb. 23-24.
Gao, along with Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez, will lead the relaunching of the Philippines-China Joint Commission on Economic and Trade Cooperation (JCETC) during his visit.
Dominguez said that Gao will be accompanied by a Chinese business delegation in his Manila trip.
“We hope that by the time Minister Gao visits here, we would also be able to complete the Six-Year Development Program for China-Philippines Cooperation. We eagerly look forward to Minister Gao’s visit because there will be much to accomplish on both sides,” Dominguez said.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the formulation of the Six-Year Development Program was signed by Gao and Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr., on behalf of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), during President Duterte’s state visit to China last October.
In an interview back in Manila, Dominguez said the Philippines and China aim to come up with a system that would ensure that the projects implemented in cooperation with each other are beneficial to the Filipino people, while ensuring that Chinese taxpayers’ money used to finance the projects are spent wisely.
“They are going into big-ticket projects so we just want to make sure first that our priorities are aligned with their priorities and that our systems are also aligned. In any start of a relationship you have to lay the good foundation for the relationship to move quickly,” Dominguez said.
The Philippine delegation submitted a total of 40 “large and small” infrastructure projects to China for possible loan financing and assistance in conducting feasibility studies during its Jan. 23-24 trip to Beijing.
Dominguez said some of the projects on the list are relatively small in scale, and are easier to implement, such as the construction of bridges across the Pasig River to ease traffic congestion in Metro Manila.
Gao has requested that the Philippines also submit the formal letters of request for the “small bridges” project so that feasibility studies and project initiation on them could commence “as quickly as possible.”
“The overall message is clear. We want to implement the projects as quickly as possible,” Gao told the Dominguez-led delegation during the Beijing meeting.
Gao also agreed with Dominguez’s proposal that regular consultations be held between the two sides to speed up preparations for the implementation of the projects.
Of the 40 projects presented by the Philippine delegation to Gao, 15 are being proposed for loan financing while another 25 were submitted for feasibility study support.
Three of these large-scale projects are worth $3.4 billion combined.
These three are the Chico River Pump Irrigation Project in the provinces of Cagayan and Kalinga with an estimated total project cost of $53.6 million; the New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam Project in Quezon, $374.03 million; and the South Line of the North-South Railway running from Manila to Legaspi City in Bicol, $3.01billion.
Nine other projects, which aim to interconnect the country’s three main island-groups, boost tourism, and construct a flood control system in Mindanao and ensure its stable power supply, were presented by the Philippine team to Gao for feasibility study support.
Dominguez, who had described the meetings with Chinese officials as “very positive” said the Philippine mission was a “productive first step towards achieving the desire of (Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and Chinese President Xi Jinping)” in further reinforcing ties between the two countries.”
He said the generous assistance offered by China to the Philippines is among the concrete results of the President’s foreign policy rebalancing toward accelerated integration with the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and its major Asian trading partners China, Japan and South Korea.
Amid global uncertainty over a possible overhaul of US trade policies under the new presidency of Donald Trump, it was a “very smart” move by President Duterte to recalibrate the Philippines’ foreign policy early on and reorient the economy toward greater integration with its Asian neighbors, Dominguez said.
