Managing public-private partnerships for a postpandemic recovery

COVID-19 is directly impacting infrastructure services around the world. Demand for existing infrastructure has fallen sharply. Construction of new infrastructure has slowed, if not stalled, everywhere. The COVID-19 crisis is also unique in the suddenness and the severity of its impact on the economy and infrastructure usage. While some infrastructure sectors like health and ICT…

excavator, construction, site

Infra projects to create 1.6M more new jobs this year–Villar

The big-ticket infrastructure projects currently rolled out by the government will create an additional 1.6 million jobs this year, President Duterte’s infrastructure managers said on Wednesday. Public Works Secretary Mark Villar told the Asia Infrastructure Forum 2021 the government’s “Build, Build, Build” program had so far created as public infrastructure spending was doubled to 5…

highway, light trail, long exposure

Metro Pacific South sets aside P 12-B capex in 2021

Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. is setting aside about P12 billion this year for capital spending for three expressway projects in southern Metro Manila and neighbouring provinces. Under subsidiary MPT South Corp., the tollroad giant said the largest share or P6.49 billion would go toward the 45-kilometer Cavite Laguna Expressway (Calax) while P5.34 billion would be…

architecture, buildings, cars

PH recovery hopes pinned on infra spending

Recovery from the pandemic-induced recession will entail not only fast-tracking mass vaccination and sustaining infrastructure development but also some more additional reforms pushed by President Duterte’s economic team on Monday. Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III told the virtual forum that earlier reforms put in place by the Duterte administration eased COVID-19’s impact on the Philippine…

San Miguel Corp. continues to invest heavily in the Philippines’ future

The work of nation-building never stops. And for San Miguel Corp. (SMC), one of the country’s largest and most diversified and profitable conglomerates, not even the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic should get in the way. Its history is so intertwined with that of the Philippines that it believes that it has the moral commitment to push…