Government eyes partner in high-speed train project

MANILA, Philippines - The Aquino administration is eyeing to partner with the private sector for the construction of a high-speed train that would connect the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Clark, Pampanga to Metro Manila, a project that would entail over $2 billion in investments, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said over the weekend.

This train would be among the big-ticket infrastructure projects under the government’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program for infrastructure.

Purisima said the government would be providing a substantial amount of subsidy for the project.

“We’re now looking at building a high-speed train to connect that airport to the center of Manila. This is a large investment, over $2 billion. The challenge really is to get the political support for that because the fares for high-speed trains relative to the incomes of people would be quite high and to make it affordable, a substantial amount of government subsidy will have to be done,” Purisima said.

Creating the balance of providing quality infrastructure at costs that will be attractive to investors and, at the same time, acceptable to end-users is at the heart of the PPP program of the Philippines right now, the finance chief added.

Metro Pacific Investments Corp., led by businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan, has expressed intentions to be a proponent of this project.

Purisima said that while the PPP program is facing delays, the government would soon launch in the coming weeks “several more” infrastructure projects following the successful launch of the first big-ticket toll road contract.

The finance chief said that the government does not want to rush the program so as not to repeat mistakes of the past.

“We’ve launched the PPP program. We’re a bit late to be honest. We’re not rushing it because we’re one of the players in this space back in 1992. We’ve had successes and failures,” Purisima said during a speech at the ASEAN-India business conference in Singapore.

Nevertheless, he said the government is now preparing to bid out “several more” projects in the next few weeks.

“We’ve launched one. There are 18 bidders to a toll way we’ve launched a few weeks back. We’re about to launch several more in the next few weeks,” Purisima said.

The first project launched was the Daang Hari SLEX road project, which attracted 18 companies.

Purisima said 18 companies attended the prequalification conference and bought bidding documents.

The Daang Hari project is estimated to cost P1.96 billion. Under the contract, the winning bidder will finance the design, construction and maintenance of the infrastructure. It is expected to ease traffic within Cavite, Las Pinas and Muntinlupa.

Purisima said that under the PPP program, the government would make sure that the policies are stable and clear.