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Tuesday, January 01, 2008
10 of 23 infra projects for 2007 completed
MANILA -- About 10 of the 23 priority infrastructure projects for 2007 had been completed by the administration in 2007, Presidential Management Staff director Cerge Remonde said.
He said the 10 projects amounting P36.12 billion were completed as of November 30.
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Remonde added that the 13 others, worth P25.15 billion, were supposed to be completed by December 31 but no immediate data on the status of the projects was available.
Of the priority infrastructure projects, those completed were the Bohol Circumferential Road, Diosdado Macapagal Bridge, New Iloilo and New Bacolod Airports, the Ports of Jagna, Maasin, Cawit, and Tubigon, the 950-kilowatt (KW) Photovoltaic Power Plant in Cagayan de Oro City, and 210-megawatt (MW) Clean Coal Plant in Phividec.
Remonde said the completion of the bridges, ports, and airports particularly the Bohol Circumferential Road, the ports of Jagna, Maasin, and Tubigon, and the airports of New Iloilo and New Bacolod, would improve the entry points to Central Philippines and help boost the tourism industry.
"The development and improvement of these points of entry will make it easier and more convenient for tourists to visit the Central Philippines, thus spurring greater economic activity in the Super region," he said.
Remonde said the commissioning of the 950-KW Photovoltaic Power Plant and 210-MW Clean Coal Plant in Phividec, meanwhile, are expected to contribute to the enhancement of the Mindanao Super region competitive edge in agribusiness and promotion of tourism with the improvement of existing infrastructure.
He said the 13 other projects that were due for completion in December include the Bicol Emergency Power Restoration; Subic Bay, Batangas, Lucena, Limasawa, Naval and Ubay Ports; Cotabato and Siargao Airports; and constructions and rehabilitations of farm-to-market roads (FMRs), cold chain facilities, small irrigation, and hospital upgrading projects.
These projects, he said, aim to help promote the agribusiness industry and contribute to making the country "a globally competitive industrial and services center, with a seamless movement of goods, services, and people."
In a related development, Remonde who also heads the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Inter Agency Coordinating Committee and the Infrastructure Pro-Performance Steering Committee, said that as of October 2007, a total of P198.67 billion had already been released by the government to 378,458 MSMEs resulting in a job generation of about 2.93 million.
He said this brings to a total of P225.44 billion worth of funds released to 3.56 million microfinance and MSMEs beneficiaries since the program started in 2001.
This also helped create 2,091,250 jobs in the last six years.
Remonde said both the MSMEs assistance and infrastructure programs are "key components of the President's social payback program and are strategic to employment generation and job creation."
He said in 2008, they expect more and bigger challenges to come "not the least of which is the gap between actual performance and public perception."
Attention is focused on the perception deficit. Still, "we are confident that this will change in the coming years," he said.
"Work, according to Khalil Gibran, is love made visible. In time, that perception gap will close," he added. (JMR/Sunnex)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Baguio. (January 1, 2008 issue)
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