DOF eyes P100-B Philippine Infra Fund

By Joann Santiago

MANILA, July 29 (PNA) -– Philippines finance officials will be in the United States in the next two weeks to meet potential investors and supporters to the planned hundred billion pesos Philippine Infrastructure Fund.

Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima disclosed this to members of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) during their general membership meeting Tuesday.

“We’re meeting with potential players. What we’re asking for is for the private sector to support the initiatives,” he said.

Purisima said the idea of establishing the Fund was taken from the Asian Infrastructure Fund (AIF) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

He said they will ask proponents of the AIF if they are “willing to allot a portion of it specifically for the Philippines so that we can show this to potential interested party and supplement our resources or capital available for infrastructure."

“Infrastructure is a substantial investment so this (Fund) will have to be in hundreds of billions of pesos and dollars,” he said.

Purisima, however, stressed that this endeavor is still on exploratory stage, thus, he declined to give further details.

On Monday, President Benigno Aquino III encouraged businessmen to invest in the country, saying that the government is very open to this to ensure the domestic economy’s growth.

Purisima said establishment of the planned Infrastructure Fund is among their modes to encourage more private-public sector partnership as mentioned by the President in his State of the Nation Address (SONA).

“In the SONA of the President it is very clear he is opening the country for investors,” he said, but added that “discussions are still in preliminary stage.” (PNA)
DCT/JS