MANILA – China stated on Sunday that it is “negotiating” with the Philippines over the funding of some infrastructure projects, after a Philippine transport official revealed that these projects were declared “withdrawn” due to Beijing’s inaction about funding requests from the previous administration.
The clarification has been issued by the Chinese Embassy after Transport Undersecretary for Railways Cesar Chavez bared that the Philippines scrapped its loan applications for three big-ticket railways— the Philippine National Railways Bicol project, Subic-Clark Railway Project, and the first phase of the Mindanao Railway Project— due to Beijing’s unresponsiveness to its loan application since 2019.
Earlier, Chavez stated that President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is assessing at renegotiating the loans with Beijing or negotiating with other countries.
The Chinese Embassy did not directly mention the funding withdrawal, but promised to “tap its own advantage and support the Philippines to improve its infrastructure.”
“Our two sides have been negotiating technical issues and made positive progress to move the projects forward,” the embassy said.
“China is open for technical discussions over our G-to-G [government-to-government] projects, and is ready to carry our cooperation forward, in close communication with the Philippine new administration,” the embassy said.
The embassy further mentioned that China has helped the Philippines complete 17 projects while over 20 projects are under implementation or in progress.
“Over the past two years, Covid-19 has impacted implementation of some projects, hindering the site availability, causing delays of procurement, affecting goods mobility, and so on. Despite those difficulties and challenges, our two sides have worked tirelessly to push the projects forward and yielded rich outcomes, spanning from anti-pandemic response, disaster relief to infrastructure, agriculture, and other fields,” the embassy said.
New era of friendship
According to the Chinese Embassy, the phone call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos on May 18 and recent high-level visits have ushered in “a new era of China-Philippine friendship.”
“Governments of the two countries are dedicated to further enhancing friendship and mutual trust, adhering to good-neighborliness and deepening mutually beneficial cooperation. China’s policy towards the Philippines has always been and will continue to be consistent and stable as ever,” the embassy said.
The Chinese Embassy expressed optimism that “continuity” will be maintained in bilateral ties as well as bilateral practical cooperation.
“Looking forward, China will build on the past fruition and further our cooperation in agriculture, infrastructure, energy, people-to-people exchange, and other fields,” it added.
China’s funding commitment for the railway projects was “deemed terminated,” according to Chavez, because China has been unresponsive to the Philippine government’s loan application since 2019.
He stated that the Chinese bank was requesting 3 percent interest on the loans, which was far greater than the 0.01 percent charged by Japan.
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