Creation of Mindanao-Malaysia nautical highway pushed

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines is strongly pursuing the creation of a nautical highway that will connect Mindanao to Malaysia under the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area (BIMP-Eaga).

In an interview with reporters, Trade Secretary Gregory L. Domingo said that the Philippines supports the connectivity of countries through a nautical highway. “We will voice it out and strongly push for it,” Domingo said.

Domingo said the country must fortify its roll on roll off (RORO) project and build ports and provide vessels to develop a nautical highway. “We will determine what makes sense for us because in the nautical perspective they (neighbors) are far from us.”

He said this will connect the Southern tip of the Philippines like Zamboanga and Tawi-Tawi to Malaysia.

Earlier, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said it supports the PIMB-EAGA as part of its key development agenda.

ADB is committed to help accelerate regional economic development through higher local and foreign investments, including in the area’s rich natural resources and tourism.

ADB has a vast experience on regional economic integration in Southeast Asia from different subregional groupings, notably the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), and the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT), and from other subregional groupings in the South and Central West Asia regions.

For BIMP-Eaga, they said they are ready to finance some of the priority infrastructure projects (PIPs) identified by member countries and are already providing complementary technical assistance in various areas, including in transport and trade facilitation to help develop economic corridors in West Borneo and in the Sulu-Sulawesi Marine Eco-region.

Currently, there are 12 priority infrastructure projects (PIPs), worth an estimated $1 billion, which were approved by the BIMP-Eaga leaders in 2009.