DTI, DPWH TO IDENTIFY PRIORITY AREAS FOR INFRA PROJECTS

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) have agreed to align the government’s infrastructure projects with the requirements of local industries.

Under a memorandum of agreement signed Tuesday, a convergence program called Roads Leveraging Linkages for Industry and Trade (ROLL IT) would allow both to “jointly undertake the planning, budgeting, advocacy for legislation, identification, evaluation, prioritization, regulation, supervision, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of industry-developing infrastructure projects in priority economic and manufacturing zones.”

Through the agreement, Trade Secretary Ramon M. Lopez said the two departments would be able to identify areas needing infrastructure projects the most. The target is to be able to identify the priority sites next year and roll out the project by 2018, Lopez said on the sidelines of the Manufacturing Summit 2016.

The convergence program is considered one of the “strong platforms of the promise of a Golden Age of Infrastructure for the Philippines by the Duterte administration, through a target of national infrastructure budget of 7 percent of gross domestic product, roughly equivalent to around P8.2 trillion.”

The ROLL IT Program will leverage on the success of a similar convergence program with the Department of Tourism called Tourism Road Infrastructure Program (TRIP), which led to the upgrading of roads leading to tourist destinations.