Friday, November 19, 2010

BOI targets $5-B investments in 2011

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:35:00 11/19/2010


MANILA, Philippines—The Board of Investments is targeting $5 billion in investments next year, with the bulk to come from the government’s public-privatepartnership (PPP) program.
In a telephone interview Friday, Trade Undersecretary and BOI managing head Cristino Panlilio said the upcoming PPP projects would boost the amount ofinvestments registered with the BOI and take the place of some big-ticket power projects that were booked with the BOI this year and in 2009.
The target, he said, was for the BOI alone and did not include investments that were expected to be registered with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority.
Among the various projects up for grabs under the PPP scheme, he said the most attractive for investors were those in the public works and highways sector.
“We got very good feedback on projects under the [Department of Public Works and Highways]. The expressions of interest were more concrete and definite,” he said.
Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras said that if the success of the PPP summit were to be based on the number of meetings that potential investors wanted to have with various agency and department heads, then the event could be deemed a resounding success.
“We didn’t have enough time to talk to everyone who wanted to have one-on-one meetings with us,” he said in a briefing Friday.
He said the expressions of interest he got from investors were good indicators that the country would be able to address the energy challenges of the coming years.
One of the key technologies that were brought up for possible development was liquefied natural gas, both for power generation and transportation.
“LNG was raised as an option. It was discussed how the PPP can be used to push the various uses of LNG for power generation and transport. This is, I think, the solution to rising petroleum prices,” he said.
Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said lining projects up for PPP was the best and fastest way for the country to build more infrastructure to support the development of the nation.
If these big-ticket items would not be put up for privatesector participation, he said the country would be eating its neighbors’ dust in terms of infrastructure development.—Abigail L. Ho

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