MANILA, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines expressed hope on Wednesday that multilateral and other funding agencies will be encouraged to increase their lending to fund the country's massive infrastructure program.
Philippine Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said he expects the Duterte administration's "'Build, Build, Build' program to shift to high gear" starting this year, with the rollout of the first set of big-ticket infrastructure projects and the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) that will help support this infra buildup.
He said funding support from the additional revenues to be raised from the TRAIN will be complemented by concessional financing packages from the Philippines' development partners, which would be well managed to ensure fiscal stability given the country's declining debt-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio.
"I am sure the projects that have been planned for the Department of Public Works and Highways are going to go into high gear now that we have basically our capital already, our own funding for our portion of these projects," Dominguez said, referring to the recent implementation of the TRAIN.
"And I guess this will also encourage the multilateral agencies and the other funding agencies to increase their lending to us," he said.
Dominguez said about one-fourth of the capital needed for the government's 8.44 trillion pesos (roughly 164 billion U.S. dollars) infrastructure modernization program will come from TRAIN revenues, while the rest will be funded by Official Development Assistance (ODA) loans.
For end-2017, Finance Undersecretary and Chief Economist Gil Beltran said in an economic bulletin that the proportion of the national government debt to GDP "has been maintained at 42.1 percent as nominal GDP also surged by 9.1 percent."
"From a high of nearly 75 percent in 2004, the debt-GDP ratio was drastically reduced to below 45 percent, owing to prudent debt management, fiscal discipline, and economic growth. The economy has been outgrowing debt in the past years, meaning, the country's capacity to service its debt has been improving," Beltran said.
In the short-term, Beltran said the government's "Build Build Build" Program may exert upward pressure on the debt stock. In the medium to-long-term, however, "a sustainable high economic growth rate (brought about by better infrastructure) will outrun the growth of debt," he said.
Beltran earlier said the majority of the 75 flagship projects under the "Build, Build Build" program worth 1.8 trillion pesos (roughly 35 billion U.S. dollars) combined are already in the construction or pre-construction phases.
Among these big-ticket projects are the Metro Manila Flood Management Project, which is co-funded by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the World Bank, Philippine National Railways South Long-Haul Line to be financed by ODA from China and the Mega Manila Subway funded by ODA from Japan, Beltran said.
