MANILA – The Department of Transportation (DOTr) on Wednesday invited Italian firms and investors to invest in Philippine transport projects as an “ideal sector for business growth.”
During the high-level Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Italy Economic Relations Summit in Manila, DOTr Secretary Jaime Bautista highlighted the business potential of big-ticket infrastructures in the Philippine transportation sector.
“We are presenting these projects to you, hoping Italian business leaders and company owners would consider the investment viability of our transport infrastructures,” Bautista said.
These big-ticket projects, he said, are under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme to help ease government spending.
“We prefer to implement projects by partnering with the private sector through a PPP arrangement. To overcome budgetary constraints, we turn to private investors or international financial institutions or foreign governments,” he said.
To date, countries that have bankrolled DOTr projects include Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, South Korea, Singapore, Belgium, and Switzerland. (PNA)