P326B infra

and Chico River Dam this year.

“All these projects mentioned have a total cost of around P326 billion,” he added.

After 2017, Dominguez said the current administration will start the construction of long span bridges between Bicol and Samar and between Leyte and Surigao and make land travel across Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao possible.

The construction and rehabilitation of key regional airports will also ease regional travel, while projects like the Mindanao Rail, an almost 2000-km railway that will connect key Mindanao cities, will be a big boost to the economy of regions that need it the most.

“While we plan to invest more outside Mega Manila, we will address the congestion here through projects such as the Mega Manila Subway, almost a dozen more bridges across Pasig River, and the development of Clark Green City to attract businesses and people out of the Mega Manila area,” Dominguez said.

It is not only the large busi multifold opportunities that will open up in the near future, the

“Our closer relationship with China, Japan, South Korea and the Asean [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] will translate into rapid tourism growth and bountiful export markets. This will mean stronger demand for processed food, in-person service enterprises, household items and consumer electronics,” Dominguez said.

He said “the stronger linkages we now forge with our development partners and regional neighbors will provide new drivers for the growth of our domestic economy.”

Regional airports will be rehabilitated, or new ones built, to ease travel across the country’s three island groups, while a 2,000-kilometer railway that will connect key cities and boost the economies of the country’s poor regions in Mindanao is also in the pipeline, he said.

“I am well aware that the congestion at the ports imposed heavy costs on our manufacturers, especially those whose competitiveness depends on just-in-time deliveries products. The congestion is both an infrastructure and administrative problem. As we upgrade our port infrastructure, we should also remove unnecessary procedural hindrances said at the PCCI forum.

The Duterte administration is also committed to address other factors that have made the Philippine economy unattractive to investments, such as its high energy costs, restrictive economic policies, corruption and uncertainty over

“In a word, increasing investments in our economy requires an all-rounded strategy. It requires both adept and far-sighted governance as well as a dynamic private sector that is always ready to seize opportunities offered by the market,” Dominguez said.

“As we improve on those factors that made our economy unattractive to investments—namely costly energy, poor infra, restrictive economic policies, corruption – and we expect investments to play the driving role in our economic expansion,” he added.