The country’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program was one of the highlights in the recently concluded 23rd Annual Canadian Council for PPPs National Conference on PPPs (P3 2015) in Toronto, Canada last November 2-3. Representatives from the public and private sector not only from Canada but other parts of the globe are the participants of this yearly PPP gathering.
In the second day of the annual conference, Southeast Asian countries particularly the Philippines and Indonesia were featured in the Southeast Asia: Emerging P3 Markets session with panel members which include PPP Center’s Executive Director Cosette V. Canilao, Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance Director General Robert Pakpahan, Asian Development Bank’s (ADB’s) Principal PPP Specialist Trevor Lewis, and Asia Pacific, Scotiabank Managing Director Eugene S. Tan. It was moderated by Assistant Deputy Minister Susan Gregson of Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs’ Trade and Development.
During the start of the panel discussion, the Philippines and Indonesia provided the participants their latest PPP program developments and list of priority infrastructure projects.
Executive Director Canilao shared first how PPP was re-established by the present government before presenting the various PPP investment opportunities in the Philippines that Canadian investors and other international companies can participate in.
“Since the PPP program was relaunched by President Aquino, we worked with multilateral partners, private sector institutions and with various government agencies in setting the platform to enable PPP in the Philippines”, she said.
The Philippines has already awarded 10 PPP contracts to the private partners and has over 40 PPP projects in the current pipeline which include 14 projects under procurement, 2 rail projects for rollout and 7 projects for approval.
Canilao also said that transportation projects, both land and sea, are the country’s present priorities. She also explained that there’s an urgent need to develop airports and improve services especially that the Philippines is an archipelago.
While Indonesian’s Director General Robert Pakpahan disclosed their country’s urgent requirement for mass transportation.
“The urgent needs are LRT and subway system. Mass transportation system is needed in several of our big cities”, he said.
Both countries emphasized the value of the private sector in helping address infrastructure gaps and building quality infrastructure facilities.
Executive Director Canilao believes that the private sector can deliver faster infrastructure projects with better service levels.
Transparent bidding process and knowledge sharing
As one of the session’s panel members, Executive Director Canilao discussed how the country’s bidding process is very transparent and has produced a level-playing field for interested investors.
“Transparency is one of the best practices that we are applying in the Philippine PPP Program,” she said.
“We’ve brought back integrity in our bidding processes and we have a very systematic way of interacting with private sector during project prep and bid process, which is very transparent,” she added.
Meanwhile, the Philippines has been visited by different countries not only in Asia but other parts of the world to learn how its PPP Program is being implemented.
“We’ve conducted several knowledge sharing sessions and workshops for the P3 centers or governments of Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Tonga, Kenya and Cambodia. They go to the PPP Center asking for blueprints on how we did it,” Executive Director Canilao said.
In April this year, the Philippines has been recognized as most improved country in Asia-Pacific for PPP readiness in the The Economist Intelligence Unit report. It recorded the most-improved regulatory and institutional frameworks, which is the result of significant regulatory reform in recent years, new bidding and selection procedures, and better dispute resolution mechanisms. It has issued various PPP policies to make sure environment for private sector participation is quite attractive. Due to these different improvements, it moved up from an emerging PPP market to a developed PPP market alongside countries like Republic of Korea, Japan, and India.
