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THE
Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp.
(PSALM) has announced it will go ahead with its plan to
prepay—its fourth this year—part of the debt of the
National Power Corp. (NPC).
An
earlier prepayment was on September 16 for two yen loans
of ¥19.76 billion or $186 million, which were extended
by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Japan Bank
for International Cooperation (JBIC) for the
600-megawatt Masinloc coal-fired power plant in Zambales
that was successfully privatized in 2007.
The ADB
loan amounted to ¥12.66 billion, or $118 million; and
the JBIC loan was for ¥7.1 billion, or $67 million.
Aggregate debt prepayments to date total $1.3 billion.
The state firm said it has substantially contributed to
cutting Napocor’s total debts to $5.8 billion as of
September 2008 from $7.01 billion at yearend 2007.
Aside
from savings on interest payments and guarantee fees,
the prepayments reduced Napocor’s foreign-currency debt
by 4 percent and increased the peso component of the
debt- currency mix by 2 percent to 13 percent. (P. Isla) |
