"필리핀에서 가장 긴 철도" ADB 인프라 프로젝트 남북철도
It's time to take a closer look at the economy.
The Asian Development Bank has been taking part in a variety of development projects in the Asia-Pacific region.
Marking the week of ADB's annual meeting our finance correspondent Lee Rae-hyun is here with us to tell us more about its projects.
Welcome, Rae-hyun.
Great to be here, Jung-min.
So, Rae-hyun, you visited the ADB headquarters in Manila last month, tell us about your time there?
Right, I visited ADB's headquarters located in the Philippines capital Manila prior to the annual meeting.
And one of the great things was, I got a chance to see one of the project sites that ADB is currently financing.
I would like to introduce you to a railway project that's going to be a substantial part of the Philippines' transport infrastructure.
It's going to be the longest railway in the Philippines.
The North-South Commuter Railway comprising three major sections will stretch about 150 kilometers, once completed.
"What you see behind me is the construction site of the Malolos Clark railway, one of the biggest transportation projects that is currently taking place in the Philippines."
The North-South Commuter Railway will link the growth centers of the city of Clark, where the international airport is located with central Manila and Calamba city to the south of the capital.
It's expected to offer commuters speedy public transport as it will cut travel time from 4 hours to less than 2 hours.
"We'll bring about faster and more efficient access for people, faster and more efficient routes for goods and services, to people back and forth travel time back and forth access between the regions will be pretty clear."
Currently, one-tenth of railways in the Philippines are operational due to the lack of investment.
This causes major traffic congestion in the Manila metropolitan area which also leads to economic losses as well.
According to data released by the Philippines government, road congestion in the region resulted in 24-point-8 billion U.S. dollars of losses in 2016.
To expand the transport infrastructure, the Department of Transportation and ADB aims to complete the railway by 2029.
This project will bring environmental benefits like cutting carbon emissions as one railway compartment is expected to replace eleven hundred cars.
The Asian Development Bank has invested 7 billion dollars into the project making it the biggest infrastructure project that the bank has ever taken part in.
South Korea's construction businesses are also participating in the project with construction orders for Hyundai and POSCO Engineering and Construction both totaling over 712 million dollars.
"Since the build, build, build policy from the Duterte administration, the Philippines is conducting large-scale infrastructure development. Korea's corporates have lots of experience based on decades of overseas construction projects which is why we have decided to use our ability to contribute to the railway project."
In fact, the project is creating more jobs with more than 2000 Filipinos employed by POSCO for the construction.
This aligns with the government's plan to boost the economy through infrastructure investment as well as ADB's goal to support social and economic development in Asia-Pacific nations.
Right, so you've mentioned the heavy traffic in Manila and you actually experienced it during the stay.
Can you describe that?
Well, the road traffic congestion was more severe than I had expected.
It took me about 2 hours from the center of Manila to the international airport a distance of around 10 kilometers.
And so, I could really feel how necessary the railway project is.
The Philippines government expects 1 million commuters a day to take the railway.
People living in that area will have much better access to jobs thanks to the convenience of the new transportation system which may also reduce poverty as well.
And as we heard, some South Korean companies are also taking part in the project. Give us some details...
#AsianDevelopmentBank #ADB #Philippine #Railway #North_South_Commuter_Railway #Infrastructure #필리핀 #인프라 #아시아개발은행 #남북철도 #Arirang_News #아리랑뉴스
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2023-05-04, 18:00 (KST)
