Philippines, World Bank ink $100m loan agreement for COVID-19 response project

MANILA - The Philippines has signed a $100-million loan agreement with the World Bank that aims to strengthen the country's capacity to prevent, detect and respond to the threat posed by COVID-19 and boost its national systems for public health preparedness.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Department of Finance (DOF) said Philippine Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez and Achim Fock, the World Bank Acting Country Director for Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, on Tuesday signed the agreement for the Philippines' COVID-19 emergency response project (ERP).

The accord follows an earlier agreement signed between Dominguez and Fock for the $500-million Third Disaster Risk Management Development Policy Loan that aims to augment the Philippine government's urgent financing requirements in dealing with the COVID-19 epidemic.

The loan carries a maturity period of 29 years, inclusive of a 10-and-a-half-year grace period.

It will be fully financed by the World Bank with no counterpart funding needed from the Philippine government.

The DOF said it expects the effectiveness of the ERP loan and the project implementation to start in early May.

The Philippines has now 7,958 confirmed case of COVID-19, including 975 recoveries and 530 deaths.