PPP Center downplays Brexit impact on foreign infra funding

MANILA, Philippines - Foreign investments in infrastructure projects under the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme would not be affected by UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, known as Brexit.

“Brexit will affect the UK’s relationship with the EU, their common market. What we are attracting in our PPP program are investors from individual economies, not EU as a whole. So this would not have a huge effect on the Philippine infrastructure program,” said PPP Center executive director Andre Palacios in a radio interview yesterday.

Incoming socioeconomic planning secretary Ernesto Pernia has also said the Brexit vote has a minimal impact on the Philippines as the country is primarily a consumption-driven economy with a small trade volume with the UK.

In the same interview, Palacios expressed hope the new administration would continuously support the PPP Center in pursuing the completion of the procurement process for pipelined projects.

Palacios said postponing the bidding process for various projects would result to delays in public service.

“We cannot dictate on the next administration on what to do but we hope they would trust in the work that we have done and that we would not go back to square one,” he said. “If the procurements would be postponed, there would be a delay in the delivery of public service.”

He said revisiting the procurement process would result to project delays of one to two years.

“The people would wait for a longer time. But if they would trust that the projects underwent a fair, legal and transparent procurement process, we can award projects within the same year,” said Palacios.

The incoming administration is keen on speeding up the rollout of projects under the PPP program by streamlining the procurement system and cutting red tape.

Pernia has said the Duterte administration wants to significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to implement projects under the PPP program.

He noted that the average time it took to implement the 12 PPP projects in the past six years was 29 months, but this could be whittled down to between 18 to 20 months.

Under the next administration’s 10-point socioeconomic agenda, it wants to accelerate annual infrastructure spending to account for five percent of gross domestic product, with PPP playing a key role.

Five PPP projects lined up for approval by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) board since last year would be turned over to the next administration for review and clearance, the PPP Center said yesterday.

The projects collectively valued at more than P100 billion include the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Development project, Batangas-Manila Natural Gas Pipeline Project, Plaridel Bypass Toll Road, Philippine Travel Center Complex, and New Nayong Pilipino at Entertainment City Project.