- Wednesday, February 26, 2025
The development comes after Manila dropped China as the financier last year.
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA, along with Japan and South Korea, has offered to financially support three railway projects in the Philippines worth nearly $5 billion, the archipelago’s transport secretary on Monday (6) said.
The development comes after Manila dropped China as the financier last year.
Filipino transportation secretary Jaime Bautista said his country’s government could tap the three Asian nations for possible official development assistance (ODA). The official, who earlier had served as the chief of Philippine Airlines, said Manila may also fund a portion of the railway projects or seek investments from the private sector, Reuters reported.
“We’re exploring these. We cannot give any details yet,” Bautista told a media forum.
The three railway projects include the Subic-Clark Railway Project, the Philippine National Railways South Long-Haul Project and the Davao-Digos segment of the Mindanao Railway Project, collectively worth $4.95 billion.
In 2022, Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos Jr had asked officials to renegotiate loan agreements with Beijing that were considered “withdrawn” after the latter failed to deliver on the request for funding.
According to Bautista, the Filipino government had to seek other financial options since no progress was visible on negotiations over loans with China on the railway projects that started five years ago when Rodrigo Duterte was the president.
Duterte, whose daughter is the vice president of the Philippines now, pursued warmer ties with China and set aside territorial disputes with Beijing in exchange for billions of dollars in aid during his presidency. Marcos replaced him in June 2022.
As of 2016, the Philippines had only 77 kilometres (km) of operational railways as against more than 1,100 km before the First World War, government data showed. Marcos has vowed to modernise the country’s railway system.
Currently, construction of the Southeast Asian nation’s first subway train, which is financed by Japan, is underway.
