World Bank eyes more loans to Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — The World Bank is looking to extend more loans to the Philippines this year, part of which will be used to fund the government’s coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 pandemic response, the Department of Finance (DOF) said yesterday.

In a statement, DOF said the Duterte administration’s economic and infrastructure clusters held an online meeting with the World Bank last week to welcome Ndiame Diop, the newly designated country director for Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand.

Diop succeeded Achim Fock, the World Bank operations manager for these four countries, who had assumed the post of country director in an acting capacity.

During the meeting, Diop revealed that there are currently nine Philippine projects proposed for World Bank financing.

“Moving forward, the pipeline is really strong with nine projects, many of which are geared toward supporting the government effort to address the crisis as well as helping the recovery,” Diop said.

He said three of these projects, which amount to almost $1 billion, “are expected to be approved by September.”

The World Bank has already provided $1.2 billion in concessional financing assistance to the Philippines to help contain the spread of COVID-19 and provide emergency relief to sectors most affected by the pandemic.

This includes the $500 million Third Disaster Risk Management Development Policy Loan, $500 million Emergency COVID-19 Response Development Policy Loan, and the $200 million additional loan for the Social Welfare Development and Reform Project II.

Diop said including COVID-19 assistance, the World Bank has delivered $1.9 billion in loans to the Philippines over a one-year period from June 2019 to June this year.