Program on road connectivity for trade development signed

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the De­partment of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) have signed a Memorandum of Agreement to create a Con­vergence Program on road connectivity for industry and trade development.

This MOA creating the Convergence Program will be one of the strong platforms of the promise of a Golden Age of Infrastructure for the Philippines by the Duterte Ad­ministration, through a target of national infrastructure bud­get of 7% of Gross Domestic Product, roughly equivalent to around P8.2 Trillion.

The MOA aims to estab­lish the working arrangement between the DTI and the DPWH to jointly undertake the planning, budgeting, ad­vocacy for legislation, identi­fication, evaluation, prioritiza­tion, regulation, supervision, implementation, and moni­toring and evaluation (M&E) of industry-developing infra­structure projects in priority economic and manufacturing zones in the Philippines.

The program will also be called the Roads Leverag­ing Linkages for Industry and Trade (ROLL IT) Program. It is envisioned that the ROLL IT Program will further fuel the recent high growth of domes­tic investments as well as the surge in foreign direct invest­ments of the country, through more road projects funded within the Duterte Adminis­tration (2016-2022).

The ROLL IT Program will leverage on the success and experiences of the DOT-DP­WH Convergence Program or the Tourism Road Infrastruc­ture Program (TRIP) that lead to the upgrading of roads lead­ing to tourist destinations.

The ROLL IT Program is anchored and consistent with President Duterte’s mandate, Ambisyon Natin 2040 (Execu­tive Order 05, s. 2016), which envisions a predominantly middle-class society with en­hanced standards of living, and aims to eradicate hunger and poverty. This initiative of the DTI and DPWH is intended to contribute in delivering the twin promises of the Duterte Administration of accelerat­ed infrastructure develop­ment and inclusive economic growth. Through better road infrastructure connecting the industries, industrial and re­gional development strategy can be realized and these will further facilitate balanced de­velopment, dispersal of indus­tries away from urban areas to­wards the rural areas, creating more job and income opportu­nities to more Filipinos.

Consistent with their re­spective mandates, the two agencies are also guided by the Export Development Act, the SME Act, and the DTI-Board of Investments Comprehen­sive National Industrial Strate­gy (CNIS).

The creation of the Pro­gram is also timely because by 2017, the DPWH would have paved most of the na­tional roads and made perma­nent the national bridges. This would create the opportunity to utilize the projected sub­stantial increase in the budget for infrastructure into the de­velopment of complementary networks of regional and local roads that will connect to, and optimize the use of, the im­proved national roads system.