The Department of Public Works and Highway aims to start the detailed engineering design activities for the Panay-Guimaras-Negros Island Bridges in June.
The engineering services of the 32.47-kilometer Panay-Guimaras-Negros Island Bridges is covered by $56.6 million in loans from the government of the Republic of Korea, the DPWH announced during the weekend.
The scope of engineering services are preliminary design covering review of the feasibility study and preliminary and basic design; detailed engineering design including estimation of detailed construction cost; and procurement assistance, it said.
Composed of two-sea-crossing bridges connecting Panay Island, Guimaras Island and Negros Island in Western Visayas, the Panay-Guimaras-Negros Island Bridges Project will shorten travel time of commuters and motorist and transport of goods from Panay to Negros Islands through ferries/roll-off-roll-on vessels to just less than one hour, the DPWH said.
DPWH Senior Undersecretary Emil K. Sadain, in-charge of the DPWH infrastructure flagship projects under the “Build, Better, More” program of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., met with a fact-finding mission from the national headquarters of the Export–Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM) on May 10.
The KEXIM team composed if its Director General Chung-Hwa Cho, Director Eunjin Cho, and Senior Loan Officer Jiwon Shin discussed pipeline projects for possible enhanced cooperation under the Korean Government’s Economic Development Promotion Facility (EDPF).
Sadain said that EDPF is a new Official Development Assistance (ODA) loan program of the Korean Government to cover the financial gap for large-scale infrastructure.
The Korea Eximbank as an independent ODA agency has the mandate to operate and manage the EDPF including identifying pipeline projects, loan approval and signing loan agreements, he said.*