ADB to lend PH $7.4B, mainly for infra

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has jacked up its lending pipeline for the Philippines to $7.4 billion in the next three years, with the bulk to be allocated for infrastructure projects under the ambitious “Build, Build, Build” program.

ADB president Takehiko Nakao noted during a press conference Monday that the yearly financing commitment to the Philippines averaging $2.5 billion from 2019 to 2021 was over twice bigger than the annual average from 2011 to 2017.

“The reason we are increasing our lending is because we want to support the ‘Build, Build, Build’ project of this administration. I have met [Finance] Secretary (Carlos) Dominguez several times and I met President Duterte three times, and we discussed a lot of the things we can do together and we want to do it in a quick and also flexible manner,” Nakao said.

Under “Build, Build, Build,” the government plans to roll out 75 “game-changing” projects, with about half targeted to be finished within Mr. Duterte’s term, alongside spending more than P8 trillion on hard and modern infrastructure until 2022 to usher in “the golden age of infrastructure.”

Nakao said the ADB was also supporting the preparation of infrastructure projects as the share of these investments to the economy was expected to jump to 7.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2022, hence the need for “good” projects as well as loans to prepare them well.

In a statement, the Manila-based multilateral lender said “one of the loans the ADB is considering in 2019 is additional financing for the technical assistance loan Infrastructure Preparation and Innovation Facility, with $100 million already committed in 2017.”