Korea Eximbank offers infra financing

THE government of South Korea has offered to finance key infrastructure projects, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said yesterday, adding that the proposal is welcome.

In a statement, NEDA said officials from the Export-Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM) met with selected agencies of the Philippine government last week to discuss possible financing opportunities on infrastructure projects.

According to NEDA, KEXIM was willing to allocate $1 billion for the Philippines in form of concessional loans over a six-year period.

NEDA said that South Korea hopes to cooperate with the government in the transport sector, information communications and technology, as well as energy, considering its comparative advantage in these sectors.

“We need to be ambitious, and at the same time we need to scale up our implementation capacity. Financing this six-year infrastructure program will be sourced from domestic resources, Official Development Assistance and Public-Private Partnership programs,” NEDA Undersecretary Rolando G. Tungpalan was quoted in a statement as saying.

Aside from concessional loans, the KEXIM is also offering its support through its Knowledge Sharing Program facility, designed to share South Korean successes and failures and propose applicable policy recommendations.

On top of that, KEXIM likewise offered to assist in the Philippines’ pre-investment activities, including project preparation, and feasibility studies and plan formulation, through the Bank’s Project Preparation Facility.

Aside from NEDA, those that participated in the dialogue were the Department of Finance, Department of Transportation, Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of Information and Communications Technology, National Irrigation Authority, and the National Electrification Administration.

The government plans to jack up infrastructure and social spending to about 7.1% of gross domestic product, or P8.4 trillion, until the end of its term, in a bid to boost the economy to 7- 8% growth annually until 2022 from 6.9% in 2016, and slash poverty incidence to 13-15% from 21.6% in 2015.

Earlier, NEDA unveiled its three-year rolling infrastructure program, which includes a total 4,895 priority infrastructure projects amounting to P3.608 billion that is spread out for the next three years.