Officials to fly to Japan for big infrastructure projects

President Rodrigo Duterte’s Cabinet officials will fly to Tokyo next week to discuss with Japanese officials a prospective list of big infrastructure projects that the Philippines could implement possibly in tandem with Japan, the Department of Finance said Friday.

The high-level delegation led by Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III will be in Japan on March 27-28. This will be their first session with Japanese counterpart to be held under the Joint Committee on Philippines-Japan Infrastructure and Economic Cooperation.

The meeting follows the successful official visit of President Rodrigo Duterte to Japan last year and the reciprocal visit made by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the Philippines in January, DOF said.

In Abe’s visit to Duterte’s home city of Davao two months ago, he committed a total of one trillion yen in official development assistance and investments to the Philippines within the next five years.

A formal invitation to the Joint Committee meeting was sent to Dominguez by Dr. Hiroto Izumi, the special advisor to Prime Minister Abe.

Izumi has asked Dominguez to cochair the Joint Committee with him.

Besides Dominguez, the Philippine delegation also includes Senator Alan Peter Cayetano; Secretaries Mark Villar of the Department of Public Works and Highways, Benjamin Diokno of the Department of Budget and Management, Alfonso Cusi of the Department of Energy and Ernesto Pernia of the National Economic and Development Authority.

Joining this group are Vivencio Dizon, President and CEO of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority; Undersecretary Cesar Chavez of the Department of Transportation; and Charge d’Affaires Eduardo Martin Meñez of the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo.

The Dominguez-led delegation is expected to present the Philip- pines’ medium term development plan and update Japanese officials on the country’s macroeconomic situation during the Joint Committee meeting, DOF said.

This team is expected to discuss a potential list of Philippine infrastructure projects for possible Japanese financing with high-ranking officials of the Japan International Cooperation Agency ( JICA) and the Japan Ministries of Foreign Affairs; Health, Labor and Welfare; Finance; Economy, Trade and Industry; Internal Affairs and Communications; Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; and Land Infrastructure and Transport.

Set for discussion during the meeting are possible cooperation agreements between the two countries in the areas of infrastructure; energy; support for Mindanao; public safety, which includes counterterrorism and the anti-illegal drugs campaign; environment and agriculture; disaster prevention; information technology; and human resource development.