MANILA, Philippines — The government is looking to develop its own shipbuilding facility that would bolster its efforts in modernizing the country’s maritime fleet.
“We have a project to develop the first shipbuilding facility that will be initiated under the Duterte administration. We have already completed our feasibility study,” Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) general manager Jay Santiago said.
The project will be spearheaded by the Department of Transportation, through the PPA.
Santiago said the shipyard would be located in Luzon, spanning 10 hectares with an initial investment cost of about P300 million.
“We are now trying to find out what is the best vehicle to be able to implement that, either it will be government-initiated, or through public-private partnership (PPP), or through solicited proposals,” he said.
“When we develop the shipyard, we want it to be PPP, but if nobody would buy into the idea in the initial stages, then we will fund it. PPA will fund it. If they see that it is working, if they want to come in later on, then we will think of some sort of mechanism to privatize it. But definitely, the operations we will bid it out,” Santiago said.
Santiago said the government hopes to break ground on its planned shipbuilding facility by next year.
He said the facility is intended to be able to build and assemble fastcrafts or passenger vessels that would do short haul trips capable of carrying about 70 to 100 people.
“The reason why we want to do this is in line with the modernization thrust of the government. We want to be able to deploy as many passenger vessels as possible during the time also that we are retiring and decommissioning vessels that are unacceptable for safety of our passengers,” Santiago said.