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Thursday, November 14, 2019 Vol. 15 No. 35
PPP gets reboot in new list of flagship projects
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By Cai U. Ordinario
@caiordinario
HE slowdown in advanced economies may be one of the reasons the national government has decided to increase the number of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in its list of flagship projects.
Economists such as Rene Ofreneo told the BusinessMirror that at least one of the government’s major sources of official development assistance (ODA), China, is expected to post slower growth. Based on a list submitted to the
House of Representatives (HOR) on Wednesday, 26 of the 100 flagship projects will be funded wholly or in part by the private sector. “Siguro may mga nakausap nga siya [President Duterte] na magbibigay ng ODA, even China nga
eh, kitang-kita mo naman ang China may economic slowdown [Maybe the President was able to talk to development partners, even China, but as you can see, China is experiencing an economic slowdown],” Ofreneo said.
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Projects on new flagship list to be funded wholly or in part by the private sector. Eleven of the 26 will be financed through various forms of public-private partnership schemes. Anther 13 will be funded via PPP, but are all unsolicited projects. The last two will be wholly funded by private groups In its Asian Development Outlook Update, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecast the Chinese economy to post a growth of 6.3 percent this year and 6.1 percent next year. See “Flagship projects,” A2
3-yr special powers eyed for Duterte in infra blitz
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PESO exchange rates n
Rene E. Ofreneo
laborem exercens
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s there a labor constituency for the trade policy that Filipino economic technocrats have been pushing for literally four decades already? There have been changes in the country’s political leadership in the last 40 years. But surprisingly, the trade and economic policy pursued by the government, as spelled out in the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plans (MTPDPs) prepared by Neda under each administration, has remained fairly uniform and consistent. It hews closely to the original structural adjustment program crafted by the IMF-World Bank in the early 1980s. The Philippines was the first recipient in Asia of the SAP program, which calls for the liberalization of the trade and investment regimes, the deregulation of the various economic sectors and the privatization of a number of government corporations, assets and services. Continued on A11
Govt rice tariff take from traders hits ₧20.72B in October
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@joveemarie
See “Special powers,” A2
No labor constituency for trade policy?
By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas
By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz
HE chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means on Wednesday filed a bill granting President Duterte three-year “special powers” to speed up the implementation of 75 flagship projects under the “Build, Build, Build.” In filing House Bill 5456, or Flagship Emergency Act of 2019, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda said his proposal seeks to complete these projects on or before 2022. Salceda said of the 75 of the original projects, 46 are being implemented as of 2019 mainly through the following: 1) General Appropriations Act-funded; 2) Official development assist a nce -f u nded w it h f i n a nc i a l close, and 3) started in the past administrations. According to Salceda, this program has to be supported with special powers to fast-track the implementation as this would provide an inclusive growth, which means reducing poverty from 21.6 percent of population in 2015 to 14 percent by 2022.
P25.00 nationwide | 6 sections 64 pages |
SAVOY AT MACTAN NEWTOWN Property giant Megaworld formally opened the 547-room Savoy Hotel Mactan Newtown, its third hotel under the homegrown Savoy Hotel brand, inside the 30-hectare The Mactan Newtown in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu. This is the biggest hotel in terms of number of rooms in Mactan Island and the second biggest in Cebu province. Leading the opening rites were (from left): Grace Bartolome, general manager of Savoy Hotel Mactan Newtown; Noli D. Hernandez, president of Megaworld Cebu Properties Inc.; Lourdes T. Gutierrez-Alfonso, chief operating officer, Megaworld; and Raymundo V. Melendres, managing director of Megaworld Hotels. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
‘If 2020 budget stalls, expect a non-operating Barmm’ By Manuel T. Cayon
@awimailbox Mindanao Bureau Chief
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AVAO CITY—A non-operating Bangsamoro government is likely to happen next year if the 2020 regional budget is not passed this year, Bangsamoro officials said, citing the urgency to hire new personnel to fill the large void that will be left by outgoing personnel of the
now defunct Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). All the 6,000 employees of the ARMM are working on holdover capacity until December only. A provision of the governing Bangsamoro Organic Law has prohibited the BARMM from rehiring in the next five years all ARMM employees who have resigned or retired. The Bangsamoro spokesman, Naguib Sinarimbo, said the urgent pas-
sage of the budget before the year ends is necessary to avoid disruption in government operation. “The urgency of that is, if we fail to make appointments and comply with the publication requirements of the positions within December, we will have a situation where will not have a government operating by January 2020; and we don’t want that to happen,” he said. See “BARMM,” A2
@jearcalas
HE government’s rice tariff collection as of end-October has reached P20.727 billion, of which P11.44 billion will be allocated for the government’s Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) for next year, according to the Department of Finance (DOF). Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III revealed this in his speech during the 11th World Rice Conference in Makati City on Wednesday. In a presentation, Dominguez said the government collected P9.283 billion in rice tariffs from January 1 to March 4, or prior to the implementation of the rice trade liberalization (RTL) law. Following the effectivity of the new law, the government earned P11.444 billion from rice imports. Of the amount, P10 billion will constitute RCEF while the excess amount will bankroll the government’s cash assistance program for rice farmers. In a separate presentation at the same event, National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Assistant Secretary Mercedita A. Sombilla disclosed that total rice imports as of end-October has reached 2.991 million metric tons (MMT). Citing data from the Bureau of Customs, Sombilla said 1.102 MMT
₧13B
The Department of Agriculture’s earlier projected rice tariffs collection this year under the RTL law of imported rice entered the country prior to the implementation of the RTL law while the remaining volume of 1.888 MMT were imported under the new rice trade regime. Sombilla said total rice imports as of October 31 is already “150 percent higher than the average importation in the same period of the previous 10 years.” The RCEF is a six-year P10-billion annual funding created by the RTL law to bankroll programs that would provide farmers with highquality seeds, machinery, easier credit access and relevant training to improve their productivity and become competitive against Vietnam and Thailand. The fund will come from tariffs collected by the government from rice imports. The amount in excess of P10 billion will be allocated for programs like crop diversification and cash transfers. The Department of Agriculture earlier said that rice tariffs collection this year under the RTL law would reach P13 billion.
US 50.8010 n japan 0.4661 n UK 65.3047 n HK 6.4892 n CHINA 7.2497 n singapore 37.3070 n australia 34.7580 n EU 55.9471 n SAUDI arabia 13.5466
Source: BSP (13 November 2019 )