MANILA – The Duterte administration is keen on looking at all sources of financing, partly due to its bid to increase investments in infrastructure.
In an interview after the flag raising ceremony at the Department of Finance (DOF) Monday, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said he is set to meet with Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Takehiko Nakao on July 8, 2016.
The Manila-based lender earlier said it targets to extend as much as US$ 1 billion in sovereign loans to the Philippines this 2016.
Dominguez said the government will “definitely explore” any financing aid for infrastructure.
“We will explore all sources of finance… what’s the best deal for the nation, not for the government, the nation,” he said.
The Duterte administration vows to implement more infrastructure projects, especially in the provinces.
Dominguez said they will review projects under the public-private partnership (PPP) initiative as well as projects under the state privatization group.
He said about 95 percent of infrastructure projects being handled by the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center are for Metro Manila and he believes that “this cannot continue.”
“It has to be rethought that is why we are meeting with the PPP Center for them to rethink the whole program and to encourage other people to make proposals for outside,” he said citing the need for the repair of at least six major airports.
The additional infrastructure-related expenses are seen to increase the government’s budget gap but the current administration earlier said it is willing to increase the share of deficit to about three percent of gross domestic product (GDP) from the Aquino administration’s two percent target.
As of end-2015, the state’s budget deficit accounted for about 0.9 percent of deficit.
Another expenses-related program that the current government is looking at is the improvement of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program.
Dominguez said they will maintain the program but “to target the recipients better.”
“Basically, to grow down to the grass roots and make sure that those people are really complying and are getting the support,” he said.
The Finance chief said they are open to increasing the budget deficit to about three percent of domestic output “starting this year.”
The inter-agency Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) will have its meeting Tuesday and Dominguez said economic targets for this and next year will be reviewed during the meeting.
“That’s basically re-orienting according to what the mandate of the people was,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dominguez said DOF’s programs will be reviewed with the help of a new officials, whose names, the Finance chief said, will be announced in the next 30 days.
Dominguez said they will have a new Chief Economist, who, under the previous administration, was Undersecretary Gil Beltran. The other new undersecretaries will be for legal, revenue, administration, and PPP and special concerns portfolios.
To date, DOF has undersecretaries for Revenue Operations and Legal Affairs, held by Undersecretary Carlo A. Carag; Domestic Finance, Usec. Jeremias N. Paul Jr.; Chief Economist, Usec. Beltran; International Finance, Usec. Maria Editha Z. Tan; Chief of Staff and Policy Development and Management Services, Usec. Ma. Lourdes B. Recente.
Finance Undersecretary Rosalia V. de Leon is the country’s Alternate Executive Director to the World Bank (WB).