{"id":207966,"date":"2019-04-01T03:03:22","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T07:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=207966"},"modified":"2019-04-01T03:03:22","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T07:03:22","slug":"we-wont-fall-into-a-debt-trap-dominguez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/04\/01\/we-wont-fall-into-a-debt-trap-dominguez\/","title":{"rendered":"We won’t fall into a debt trap: Dominguez"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dominguez, in a statement, reiterated that in conformity with the Constitution and our laws, none of the pipeline projects funded with official development assistance (ODA) from countries like Japan and China allow for the appropriation or takeover of domestic assets in the event of a failure to pay, will never happen. (File Photo<\/a>: Department of Finance:\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III on Sunday reassured the public that the Philippines will not fall into a “debt trap” to any other country as the government expands its infrastructure investments through concessional loan financing from its development partners.<\/p>\n

Dominguez, in a statement, reiterated that in conformity with the Constitution and our laws, none of the pipeline projects funded with official development assistance (ODA) from countries like Japan and China allow for the appropriation or takeover of domestic assets in the event of a failure to pay, will never happen.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s borrowing program, Dominguez noted, remains \u201cvery conservative in the sense that we only borrow to invest in projects that will generate economic gains which are greater than the borrowing cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Dominguez, no infrastructure project is funded through ODA without first going through a rigorous system of reviews and approvals by the Cabinet and the President, and unless it is certain that the project is economically viable and highly beneficial to the Filipino people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been warned about the so-called debt trap owing to the massive infrastructure spending and loans from China under this administration. Let me assure you that the Philippines will not fall into a debt trap to any country as we expand our infrastructure spending with ODAs,\u201d Dominguez said before members of the Rotary International District 3800 during their district conference held last week at the Edsa Shangri-la Hotel in Mandaluyong City.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe draw lessons from our own history as well as that of other countries and are ensuring that we manage our debts prudently,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Dominguez said the highly concessional loans and grants received by the government to help fund the Duterte administration\u2019s \u201cBuild, Build, Build\u201d program will help make the economy fully competitive, create jobs, open more business opportunities, bring down logistics costs and realize better-distributed growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ask the few who understand complex ODA terms to help us battle malicious efforts to confuse and misinform the public,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dominguez said the government\u2019s debt is carefully structured to ensure that it does not borrow without raising its own capital for infrastructure projects, while at the same time sourcing a significant portion of financing from the local debt market to minimize exposure to adverse external factors.<\/p>\n

He said that as of 2018, the government\u2019s project debt exposure was only 0.66 percent to China and 9 percent to Japan in relation to the total debt.<\/p>\n

By 2022, when most of the financing for the \u201cBuild, Build, Build\u201d program will have been accessed, the country\u2019s project debt to China will account for 4.5 percent, while that of Japan\u2019s will be twice as large at 9.5 percent of the total debt, he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III on Sunday reassured the public that the Philippines will not fall into a “debt …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-business","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207966","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207966"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207971,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207966\/revisions\/207971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}