DOF chief: New Clark City will be PHL’s next metropolis

April 15, 2018

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said the fast-track​ development of the New Clark City in Pampanga is meant to transform it in​to the country’s next big metropolis and decongest Metro Manila’s highly populated urban centers.

Dominguez said New Clark City is envisioned to be a hub of agro-industrial activities, home to cutting-edge technology and logistics companies, and host to well-equipped backup government centers and world-class sports facilities.

“It captures what the ‘Build Build Build’ program aspires to achieve: a coherent national logistics circuit that will support our country’s rapid and inclusive development,” said Dominguez in his opening remarks at the Philippine Economic Briefing held at the ASEAN Convention Center in Clark.

In welcoming the participants at the briefing, Dominguez described the New Clark City as the “showcase of the Duterte administration’s economic strategy.”

Alongside ​the development of​ New Clark City is the construction of railways going to Subic and to Manila and the expansion of the Clark International Airport, which will get a new world-class terminal building to accommodate a projected eight million passengers per year to help relieve the congestion at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, Dominguez said. The expansion project for the Clark airport broke ground last December.

“This, truly, is where the future begins. We envision this as the hub of agro-industrial activities as well as the home for cutting-edge technology companies. Clark, in the near future, will be the growth driver for Luzon,” Dominguez said.

President Duterte’s economic strategy, Dominguez said, aims to grow the economy by 7 percent or better into the medium term by embarking on an ambitious infrastructure program dubbed the “Build Build Build” consisting of 75 flagship projects, of which 23 have completed the approvals process and ready to begin implementation.

He said this aggressive “Build Build Build” program would not be possible without the fiscal space created by many years of disciplined management of the government’s revenues and expenditures and the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion or TRAIN L​aw, which will complement existing budgetary resources to hasten the infra buildup.

Under the TRAIN, 70 percent of all incremental revenues from this law will be used to fund the infrastructure program, while 30 percent will be used to expand social services and harness the country’s human resources​through education, health and skills-training programs. DMS