Noli leads housing delegation to Chile

Vice President Noli De Castro heads a delegation of Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) officials to confer with Chilean housing officials and experts on their highly successful housing program "viviendas sociales" beginning today.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said the visit to Chile by De Castro, chairman of the HUDCC, augurs well for the continued enhancement of Philippine relations with this South American country.

The meeting also aimed to address the Philippines’ housing shortage and proliferation of informal settlements in the capital city of Santiago.

The Philippines and Chile have signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) on socialized housing, and that this joint undertaking was first raised by President Arroyo with her Chilean counterpart, President Ricardo Lagos, at the sidelines of the 9th APEC Economic Leaders Meeting (AELM) in Shanghai in 2001.

During their meeting at the sidelines of the 12th AELM held in Santiago, Chile last November, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo said the two heads of states agreed to the full implementation of the memorandum. In the same meeting, Mrs. Arroyo informed Lagos that she would send the Vice President and the country’s housing czar to Chile and work towards the full realization of this joint undertaking.

Romulo lauded this undertaking as a reaffirmation of the country’s conduct for its foreign policy agenda to revitalize its ties with countries in the Latin American region.