Foreign investors interested in NAIA, LRT projects — PPP Center

Investors from China, Japan and the UK have expressed interest in two of the government’s public-private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects, the head of the PPP Center said Monday. “They have expressed interest in the [Ninoy Aquino International Airport] and [Light Rail Transit] projects,” the Center's executive director Cosette V. Canilao said in a press conference after the mid-year Philippine Economic Briefing among the country's economic leaders. The PPP Center is preparing to bid out the $1.4 billion LRT Line 1 Cavite Extension and Operations & Management contract as well as the $377.5 million Ninoy Aquino Expressway Phase II road project that would improve access to the airport. The LRT and NAIA projects are two of the PPP projects that the government is set to roll out this year. “We’ll launch at least eight projects this year. We’ve resolved most of the bottlenecks already,” Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said. So far, the government has been able to bid out the Daang Hari Project and the $239 million-worth PPP For School Infrastructure Project's (PSIP) Phase I. The Department of Education is set to bid out PSIP's Phase 2 before the end of the year. Three of this year's eight PPP projects are still waiting for the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board's approval: the $466.8-million Cavite-Laguna Expressway; the $128.3-million modernization of the Philippine Orthopedic Center; and the $11.3-million Vaccine Self-Sufficiency Project Phase II. One project is up for review by the Investment Coordination Committee: the $38.1-million rehabilitation, operation and maintenance of Angat Hydro-Electric Powerplant's Turbines 4 and 5. — BM, GMA News