The Philippine government is encouraging its counterparts in the Asean region to create a regional PPP Center based here, and explore the possibility of creating a fund to support public-private partnership (PPP) projects in the region.
These were among the recommendations of local officials at the first Asean PPP Networking Forum currently happening in Manila.
The forum is being conducted in support of the Master Plan on Asean Connectivity, which seeks to address the region’s infrastructure constraints ahead of the Asean Economic Community (AEC).
“Our dialogue partners, the 10 of them—Australia, Japan, the European Union, South Korea, Canada, etc.—are becoming more and more interested in PPP, so much so that they keep on coming to us wanting to discuss how we can expand PPP projects. So you start from the Philippines and then you expand this on an Asean-wide basis, and it becomes a giant PPP destination. This is the Asean vision,” Ambassador Elizabeth P. Buensuceso, the country’s permanent representative to the Asean and a member of the Asean Connectivity Coordinating Committee, said in a news briefing on Tuesday.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M.
Balisacan said the Philippines has been at the forefront of crafting projects that feature cooperation between public and private institutions.
He said the crafting and passage of the build-operate-transfer law in 1990 was a first for the Philippines and in Asia.
Given the long years of experience of the country in undertaking PPPs, creating a regional institution in the country that would take stock of best practices would be a great help to all Asean member-economies,
especially in light of the AEC.
“One of the things that we also offer the Asean is our interest in expanding knowledge and the generation of that knowledge regarding PPP. The Philippines can be an ideal place for setting up an institution catering to the Asean for capacity building, training, research on PPP,” Balisacan said.
Apart from a regional institution, PPP Center Executive Director Cosette Canilao said setting up a fund, similar to the country’s Project Development and Monitoring Fund (PDMF), could help Asean countries design PPP projects.
Canilao said the creation of the revolving PDMF, which is used to finance prefeasibility studies for PPPs that result in economically viable projects, has been a critical factor in the success of PPPs in the country, and, possibly for Asean member-countries.
Buensuceso said creating a fund similar to the PDMF is an “interesting” undertaking, but a very viable one. She said while she cannot guarantee that such a measure will be passed, it would be to the interest of Asean member-countries to explore the possibility of creating this fund.
“This is one of the things we want to discuss. Do we want something like this? Is it a desirable thing? It’s a very interesting suggestion but very viable. If we have an Asean group that aims to really promote an Asean PPP agenda, then it should have a mechanism, a fund to drive it,” Buensuceso said.
The country’s PDMF is a revolving pool of funds made available to enhance the PPP investment environment and develop a robust pipeline of viable and bankable PPP projects.
The PDMF is currently at $75.7 million. This consists of $18 million from the Australian government through the Asian Development Bank (ADB); $51.5 million from the national government; and $6.2 million worth of reimbursements.
The prefeasibility studies of 38 PPP projects in the pipeline are being financed through the PDMF. The studies are being done by a panel of 22 international consulting firms.
Asean’s infrastructure needs cost around $160 billion a year from 2010 to 2020. This is part of the $750-billion annual requirement of the entire Asian region during the period, according to the ADB.