The government is satisfied with its membership in the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which was established only two years ago but is showing solid progress in its operations, according to the Department of Finance (DOF).
Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the Philippines’s AIIB membership is off to a good start, pointing out that the bank operates in an organized manner.
The finance chief said the Philippines’s attendance to the AIIB 2017 annual meeting in Jeju Island, Korea, earlier this month was the country’s first being a new member. The forum discussed areas where AIIB plans to move ahead and what it has already done.
“This was the first meeting that the Philippines was invited to because we just joined [AIIB]. It is a learning process for us, and quite frankly we are very happy with what we hear about the AIIB, they run a very lean organization. Obviously, their expenses are not too high, so as a shareholder we are quite happy,” he added.
Earlier the government has pitched the Metro Manila Flood Management project for cofinancing with the AIIB, with the World Bank being the first multilateral agency tapped for the project.
The Metro Manila Flood Management Project Phase 1 includes the rehabilitation of 36 pumping stations in Metro Manila and the construction of 20 new ones in the cities of Manila, Pasay, Pasig, Mandaluyong, San Juan, Caloocan, Valenzuela and Quezon City. The project will be implemented in July this year until December 2023.
“So that is being cofinanced with the World Bank, to be exact, it is about $207.63 million from the World Bank and $207 million from AIIB, and the balance is from the government, which is $84 million for a total of $500 million. That is the whole project cost,” DOF Assistant Secretary Maria Edita Z. Tan said.
Dominguez said the Duterte administration is open to pitch for wholly funded projects to the AIIB, but added that the government now has numerous institutions that it can tap aside from the AIIB.
“Yes, of course. But again, you know, we have many sources of funds. You have to remember that the Philippines is not where it was 10 or 25 years ago, we have a variety of sources of funds and we have the luxury of choosing the sources with the best conditions for us. So we will compare the costs of the different multilateral agencies, we will compare that with borrowing commercially from the market,” he added.
Last May the DOF also expressed its plan to propose to the AIIB for cofinancing the New Centennial Water Source-Kaliwa Dam Project in Quezon worth $374.03 million, and the South Line of the North-South Railway running from Manila to Legaspi City in Bicol with an estimated cost of
$3.01 billion.