NEDA-ICC to act as clearing house for China investments

MANILA, Philippines - The Investment Coordination Committee (ICC) of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) will be the designated clearing house for proposed investments from China, the agency announced yesterday.

Among the policy proposals approved during the NEDA board meeting held early this week were the ICC guidelines on processing China-assisted projects.

This will also guide the review and approval process for projects especially for those that will require Chinese support for the conduct of pre-investment and investment activities.

“The rationale of the proposal is to establish a single clearing house, which is the ICC, for the expected influx of projects or investments proposed to be supported by China,” NEDA said in a statement issued yesterday.

Earlier this month, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia said investments committed by China during President Duterte’s visit last month would have a “sizeable” impact on the economy.

In absorbing Chinese investments, he said the government wants projects to be demand-driven rather than supply-driven to support the infrastructure needs of the growing economy.

The Philippine government would also make sure such projects are undertaken by “internationally reputable firms” with no bad track record.

“We want to have that mechanism in place to guard us from unworthy or unwelcome types of companies or proposals,” said Pernia.

He said the Philippine government has already asked China to have a counterpart agency that would accredit companies to have partnerships with the Philippines. The Philippine government, on the other hand, would screen the firms through the NEDA-ICC composed of only the main economic managers.

“The Chinese side will accredit companies that are qualified, that they think we would welcome and then we would choose the ones accredited by the Chinese,” said Pernia earlier. “So there would be two hurdles, two screenings.”

The conduct of a screening process for Chinese firms was decided on after concerns were raised on the reputation of several Chinese firms eyed to undertake new projects in the country.

President Duterte came home from China bearing around $24 billion worth of funding and investment pledges for transportation, infrastructure, power and agriculture among others.

These also included a $3-billion credit line for small and medium enterprises from the Bank of China.

The two countries also signed 13 MOUs on various areas of cooperation covering agriculture, energy, infrastructure and ICT.

In a related development, the NEDA Board also approved the proposal of the Department of Transportation to unbundle five of its airport projects that were approved by the board in 2014 under the public-private partnership (PPP) scheme.  

“The rationale for the proposal is to expedite early completion of PPP selection and award,” said NEDA. 

The five projects, which all involve operation and maintenance (O&M), have a combined cost of 108.18 billion.

These are the following: Iloilo Airport, Bacolod Airport, Laguindingan Airport, Davao Airport, and New Bohol (Panglao) Airport.