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The Investment Coordination Committee-Cabinet Committee (ICC-CabCom) is aiming to finish half of the 100 projects under the Duterte administration’s “Build, Build, Build” initiative.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, who chairs the ICC-CabCom, said the Cabinet body discussed during a meeting on Friday in Manila the status of the 100 projects under the Infrastructure Flagship Program.

“Of the 100 projects, we expect a total of 50 projects to be completed by the end of 2022, but all the 100 projects will be started within the term of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte,” Dominguez said.

The Cabinet official said that 46 projects are already ongoing implementation.

“This has increased from last year’s figure of 32 projects,” he said.

In January, Duterte instructed his Cabinet to implement project that can be realized within his term. His term will expire in June 2022.

The government had earlier revised its “Build, Build, Build” list which now covers 100 projects. The administration initially had 75 flagship infrastructure projects, but scrapped several items due to feasibility issues.

The updated list covers flagship infrastructure projects under five categories, namely, transport and mobility, power, water, information and communications technology, and urban development and renewal.

Dominguez said the remaining half of the 100 projects which will not be completed beyond Duterte’s term “provides a very robust pipeline of projects amounting to roughly P2.3 trillion for the succeeding administration, compared with only 14 projects worth about P230 billion that were ready for implementation when the Duterte administration took over in July of 2016.”

The Finance chief said that a total of 87 strategic projects in the areas of infrastructure, health, and agriculture, among others, have been approved since the start of the Duterte administration amounting to P3.774 trillion.

“Forty or almost half of these projects are included in the Infrastructure Flagship Program,” Dominguez said.

“We have identified the bottlenecks on the ongoing implementation of ODA and locally-funded infrastructure projects and explored ways and measures on how to address or eliminate these to accelerate their execution,” he said.

The Duterte administration, the Cabinet official said, will continue to ensure that all infrastructure projects are implemented on time and on budget.

“The ongoing implementation of the majority of these projects will provide the economy the impetus it needs to offset the challenges that could dampen growth this year,” Dominguez said.

“We also remain on track in achieving our target of accelerating infrastructure spending to 7% of GDP (gross domestic product) by 2022,” he said.—AOL, GMA News

This article Cabinet body aims to complete 50 out of 100 flagship infra projects within Duterte’s term was originally published in GMA News Online.