The Department of Finance (DOF) has expressed confidence Japan’s commitment to continue to support the Philippines’ infrastructure development and other development initiatives will be for the long term.
This as the Japanese government reported its financial contributions to the Philippines’ nation-building efforts have amounted to 1.38 trillion yen over a five-year period.
The Philippines and Japan reaffirmed Wednesday their strong economic partnership and recognized the substantial gains made in deepening bilateral cooperation between the two countries at the conclusion yesterday of the 12th meeting under the Duterte administration of their high-level joint committee on infrastructure development and economic cooperation.
Carlos Dominguez, DOF secretary, chaired the Philippine side while Mori Masafumi, the special advisor to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan, led the Japanese delegation in the virtual meeting of the Philippines-Japan High-Level Joint Committee on Infrastructure Development and Economic Cooperation.
Mori reiterated the commitment made by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to President Rodrigo Duterte on continuing Japan’s “support to the Philippines’ infrastructure development including railways, response to COVID-19, and capability enhancement for maritime law enforcement,” among other development initiatives between the two countries.
“…The government of Japan’s commitment to the bilateral cooperation project remains unchanged under the Kishida Cabinet,” Mori said.
Dominguez said the past six years of development cooperation between the Philippines and Japan under the umbrella of this high-level committee “have been fruitful despite the challenges and inevitable delays brought by the pandemic and unforeseen natural disasters.”
During the meeting, the two sides discussed proposed additional financing support of 30 billion yen from Japan under the 2nd COVID-19 Crisis Response Support Loan to help cover the funding for the Philippines’ ongoing national vaccination program.
