Iloilo city, province to receive 3 major infra projects

• Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?nid=9&rid=785523
• Thursday, July 23, 2015

(PNA), LAP/AJP/LCPENDON/VLO

ILOILO CITY, July 23 (PNA) -– The city and province of Iloilo will soon be recipients of three multi-billion peso projects under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) scheme after a study on the viability of some projects is finished.

Soon to start is the expansion of the Iloilo international airport in Cabatuan, Iloilo which has been approved by the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC).

Other Iloilo projects on the pipeline are the proposed government center in Passi City by Senate President Franklin M. Drilon and the proposed railway system project from the city to the province of Iloilo by city mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog.

PPP Center Executive Director Cosette Canilao said that PPP has 13 ongoing infrastructure projects out of the 15 projects to be completed in different parts of the country before the Aquino administration ends in 2016.

Each of these projects must be over Php300 million to be considered by the PPP assistance for financing after passing the approval of the regional development council and the NEDA Board.

There are 221 finished projects since the inception of PPP. The center is also working for the passage of amendments to the existing Board of Investments Act to cover irrigation and other social infrastructures.

Canilao, with Canadian Ambassador Neil Reeder, conducted a press briefing for the national, international and local media covering the two-day Asia Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) in this city on July 23-24.

On the other hand, the Department of Finance stressed that the lack of investment in the region’s infrastructure cannot be attributed to the insufficiency of capital since a large amount of capital worldwide is seeking profitable investment opportunities that can complement public sector resources.

What then needs to be done to enable more of this capital to flow into much needed infrastructure projects in the region’s emerging markets? Two major obstacles were identified and these were the lack of a pipeline of bankable infrastructure projects in developing economies that can attract capital from institutional investors.

The second obstacle is the lack of appropriate financial instruments and enabling policy frameworks for pension funds and insurance firms to expand their investment in emerging market infrastructure.

By addressing these two issues, the APEC Finance Ministers’ Process (FMP) can remove the obstacles to the advancement of APEC’s vision of sustained, balanced and inclusive growth.