{"id":171616,"date":"2018-07-17T22:51:32","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T02:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=171616"},"modified":"2018-07-17T22:51:32","modified_gmt":"2018-07-18T02:51:32","slug":"ph-wont-fall-into-debt-trap-chinese-envoy-assures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/07\/17\/ph-wont-fall-into-debt-trap-chinese-envoy-assures\/","title":{"rendered":"PH won’t fall into debt trap, Chinese envoy assures"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Under<\/a>
Under the \u201cnew era\u201d of China-Philippines relations, Zhao said China will make sure its funded projects will benefit the Filipino people. (alexfan32\/Shutterstock)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua assured Tuesday that the Philippines would not fall into a \u201cdebt trap\u201d even after it took Chinese loans to bolster the Duterte administration\u2019s \u2018Build Build Build\u2019 infrastructure program.<\/p>\n

Zhao made this remark as President Rodrigo Duterte led the groundbreaking ceremony of two bridge projects to be funded by Chinese grant.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina\u2019s loan to finance infrastructure projects will not make the Philippines fall into debt trap,\u201d Zhao said in his speech during the event held at Intramuros, Manila.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause under the wise leadership of President Duterte and economic management team headed by Secretary (Carlos) Dominguez, they are smart enough not to allow the Philippines to fall into the so-called debt trap,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Zhao said even the two bridge projects to be constructed for free by China along Pasig River \u201cdo not have any string attached\u201d.<\/p>\n

Under the \u201cnew era\u201d of China-Philippines relations, Zhao said China will make sure its funded projects will benefit the Filipino people.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina will honor this commitment to make sure those projects will benefit the Filipino people, will not have any negative impact on the socio-economic development of the Philippines,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The two projects to be funded by Chinese grant included the 734-meter Binondo-Intramuros Bridge and the 506.46-meter Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge in Mandaluyong.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll do our utmost to prove that President Duterte\u2019s independent foreign policy, particularly friendly-cooperative policy towards China will produce more tangible benefits to the people of the Philippines,\u201d Zhao said.<\/p>\n

Zhao said China is also \u201cpositively considering\u201d soft loans for five more bridge projects along Pasig River.<\/p>\n

Dominguez agreed that the Philippines will not fall into debt trap since all projects, especially those set to be funded by China, \u201care all economically viable\u201d.<\/p>\n

He was referring to the Chico River Pump Irrigation project, which China funded along with Kaliwa Dam and railway projects, particularly between Manila and Bicol.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe railway project between Manila and Bicol is something that will help the Bicol region. So there is no danger of a debt trap. It will help the economy. All these projects are going to be positive for the economy,\u201d Dominguez said in a media interview.<\/p>\n

When asked why China funded the two bridges for free, Dominguez replied: \u201cI think because, they think that a better Philippines will be better for the entire Asia and I think it\u2019s true\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to the Department of Public Works and Highways, the cost of the two bridge projects is around PHP5.27 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua assured Tuesday that the Philippines would not fall into a \u201cdebt trap\u201d …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":171619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[11171,11223,53511],"class_list":["post-171616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-china-philippines","tag-duterte-administration","tag-philippines-zhao-jianhua","mauthors-jelly-musico","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}