The Department of Transportation on Wednesday asked European investors to invest in big-ticket infrastructure transport projects of the Marcos administration.
Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista made the pitch to top officials of the European Union-Association of South East Asian Nations Council and European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines to invest in big-ticket infrastructure transport projects.
Bautista identified the added value of projects being implemented by the agency in partnership with international financial institutions, foreign governments and business groups.
He said that because of budgetary constraints, project financing from foreign business groups presented the most viable option to undertake these projects.
“The biggest obstacle has always been fund-sourcing, considering the strained national budget of our government after coming out of the pandemic,” Bautista said during informal discussions with officials of the EU-ASEAN Business Council and ECCP.
“We have offered various infrastructure transport projects to international financial institutions, private investors, and professional associations and industry groups,” he said.
Bautista cited the proposed privatization of the operations and management of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport as an option for private sector investment.
“Other regional airports across the country are in the pipeline for privatization,” he said.
Bautista also touted infrastructure projects in various transport sectors such as railways, maritime and road, including the Metro Manila Subway, North-South Commuter Railway, LRT-1 Cavite Extension Project, MRT-7 and MRT-4.
“It’s important because they can assist us in financing the projects through PPP so we hope that the investors from their countries can be supportive of many projects of DOTr. We have PPP projects for airports, rails and for roads and for maritime,” Bautista said.