Econ managers to consult Japan to speed up projects

Philippine economic managers are flying to Tokyo for a high-level committee meeting on ways to speed up the process and implementation timelines of flagship infrastructure projects for possible Japanese financing.

“We want to discuss with them how we can fast-track the process of implementing the projects,” Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said in a statement on Friday.

The meeting of the Philippines-Japan High-Level Committee on Infrastructure and Economic Cooperation will be held on September 25.

This will be the third dialogue since the first was held also in Tokyo in March.

The second high-level committee meeting happened in Manila last July, during which National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Director General Ernesto Pernia and Dominguez presented an indicative list of projects in the pipeline for possible Japanese financing. The estimated total cost of the project was pegged at P315.4 billion.

For the third high-level committee meeting, Dominguez said the Philippine government intends to implement measures that would speed up the approval process of big-ticket infra projects.

The Investment Coordination Committee-Cabinet Committee (ICC CC) is seeking the NEDA Board consent to implement a new "3-in-1" process to reduce the approval timeframe from four to eight weeks to a single Neda Board meeting. The board is chaired by President Rodrigo Duterte.

Apart from Dominguez and Per ni a, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade, Public Works Secretary Mark Villar, and Bases Conversion Development Authority President Vivencio Dizon will join the meeting in Tokyo next week.

They will meet with Hiroto Izumi, a special advisor to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who heads the Japan side of the high-level committee.

Officials from the Japan Ministries of Finance, of Foreign Affairs, of Trade and Industry, of Economy, and of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism are also part of the meeting, as well as officials from the Japan International Cooperation Agency and Japan Bank for International Cooperation.

After the meeting, the Philippine economic managers will brief potential Japanese investors on the Philippine economy.