China ready to work with PH on new projects

CHINA is ready to work with the Philippines on a second basket of infrastructure projects that was pitched for possible financing last week, the Finance department said.

In a statement on Monday, the department quoted China’s Commerce Minister Zhong Shang as saying that he hoped to “reach a consensus on the working level”.

“We hope that continuous progress can be made on our priority projects so that we can reach the consensus of our two Presidents and we can press ahead with our economic cooperation and trade,” Zhong was said to have declared during a meeting with Philipine economic managers in Beijing last week.

The Finance department did not provide the list of the projects presented to China.

Nevertheless, it said that Philippine and Chinese officials cited efforts to further streamline and expedite approvals of the first basket of projects.

“We recognize and appreciate the continuing engagement between our governments to speed up the preparations of the bigticket infrastructure projects. Both governments are exerting efforts to streamline and expedite the approval process for the flagship projects,” Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3rd said at the meeting.

The projects up for fasttracking are the BinondoIntramuros and the EstrellaPantaleon bridges in Metro Manila; the Chico River Pump Irrigation Project in Cagayan and Kalinga provinces and the New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam Project; two drug rehabilitation facilities; the Elevated Expressway in Davao City; and the