Vice President of ADB, Ahmed Saeed; Executive Director Paul Dominguez; Country Director Kelly Bird; Philippine Competition Commission Chairman Arsenio Balisacan; distinguished guests, good afternoon.
The Asian Development Bank has been one of our strongest partners in sustaining progress towards shared growth and prosperity.
In the past 10 years, ADB’s total commitment to the Philippines amounted to 7.2 billion US dollars in loan financing. This year, ADB’s proposed loan financing amounts to about 2.5 billion US dollar and in the next two years, an additional support of about 7.8 billion US dollars. This brings up the Bank’s support to the Philippines to a total of 10.3 billion US dollars over the medium term.
The proposed substantial increase in ADB’s loan assistance underscores the Bank’s strong support in translating the Duterte administration’s development objectives into concrete investments, particularly related to the country’s Build, Build, Build Program, human capital development, disaster preparedness, tourism, health care, and agriculture. In short, the whole range of our development concerns.
Today, we have signed three more loan packages. These are: the 400 million US dollar-loan for Facilitating Youth School to Work Transition Subprogram 2; the 23.3 million US dollar-loan for Capacity Building to Foster Competition; and, additional financing of 200 million US dollars for the Infrastructure Preparation and Innovation Facility.
These packages complement vital aspects of our overall development strategy. The financing support for infrastructure preparation, for instance, enables us to undertake the engineering and feasibility studies for major Build, Build, Build projects, such as the Bataan-Cavite bridge, the Samal Island-Davao City connector bridge, Mindanao Railway Project, Metro Manila Subway, Subic-Clark Railway, and the North-South Commuter Railway System.
The financing support for the youth employment facilitation program, on the other hand, will strengthen our ability to carry out policy reforms and government initiatives aimed at improving the employability of our talented young workforce. As you may know, the Philippines is poised to reach what has been coined as the “demographic sweet spot”. As the populations of some of the more mature economies in Asia begin to age, we are looking forward to the entry of millions of young Filipinos into the workforce. We must invest in them and ensure that they are globally competitive.
Meanwhile, the financing support for capacity building project will help the Philippine Government in the implementation of the Philippine Competition Act, particularly in improving the government’s capacity to enforce the competition law, thereby promoting free and fair competition in various economic activities and industries.
I assure our partners at the ADB that your financing support you have provided will be used most efficiently to help realize the Duterte administration’s comprehensive development strategy.
Let me take this occasion again to thank the ADB for its confidence in our government’s capacity to bring forth bold reforms and undertake ambitious development projects. We will do our utmost not to disappoint your best expectations.
We are at a crucial turning point. Our economy has sustained high growth. The poverty rate has significantly declined and unemployment is at its lowest rate in 40 years. We expect to graduate to upper-middle-income country status way ahead of our schedule next year. We have decisively broken out of the former boom-and-bust cycle that inhibited our projects in the past. We are consolidating for rapid and inclusive growth well into the foreseeable future.
Passing these milestones on the road to a Philippines free of extreme poverty would not have been possible without the support of our staunch partners such as the ADB, through the leadership of outgoing President Takehiko Nakao. We thank Mr. Nakao for being a true friend and partner of the Filipino people and for his untiring support for the country’s development.
We earnestly hope that our relationship with ADB will even be more robust in the years to come under the leadership of incoming President Asakawa.
Thank you and good day.
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