India is among several countries which have offered to fund several railway projects in the Philippines, an official told the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines (EJAP) Forum 2023 on Monday.
Philippines’ Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said that South Korea and Japan have also offered to fund the railway projects under their respective Official Development Assistance (ODA) schemes.
“We're exploring these. We cannot give any details yet," Bautista was quoted as saying by media.
The projects for which financial support is being sought include the Subic-Clark line, the Philippine National Railways Project and a railway line connecting the cities of Davao and Digos.
The estimated costs of developing the three projects is around $5 billion.
An official press release on Monday quoted Bautista as saying that the government was also in seeking to develop several “big-ticket” railway projects, including the Metro Manila Subway, LRT-1 Cavite Extension, MRT-7, and North South Commuter Railway (NSCR).
Last month, Bautista reportedly told a conference that China didn’t seem interested in funding the three railway projects.
Ties between the BRI partners have hit a rough patch this year due to several maritime encounters between the two coast guards in the South China Sea in recent months.
Beijing claims sovereignty over the South China Sea, which it says falls under the historic ‘nine-dash line’. The Philippines, on the other hand, has asked China to adhere to an international tribunal ruling, which invalidated Beijing’s maritime claims under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).