ASEAN HEADLINES: MANILA – Philippines seeks $300-M World Bank loan to buy COVID vaccines

February 3, 2021February 3, 2021 Contributor 0 Comment ASEAN HEADLINES:, ASEAN HEADLINES: MANILA - PH seeks $300-M World Bank loan to buy COVID vaccines

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines is seeking a fresh loan of $300 million from the World Bank to purchase vaccines for COVID-19, according to documents from the multilateral lender seen by the Inquirer on Saturday.

In response to the loan request made last November, the bank allowed the government to initially use $25 million to $30 million of its $100-million loan to the Duterte administration’s emergency COVID-19 project in April last year, according to one document.

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Another document said the amended loan agreement would provide financing support “to the borrower’s (the Philippines) health sector in the purchase and deployment of project COVID-19 vaccines.”

On Dec. 29, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III confirmed and agreed to the amendment, or restructuring, of the April 2020 loan in behalf of the government, the documents said.

The World Bank said the proposed additional financing would be submitted to its Washington-based board for approval during the first quarter of this year.

So far, only $8.15 million had been disbursed from the $100-million loan to procure additional medical equipment and strengthen the health-care system during the pandemic. The loan agreement took effect in May 2020.

“While there were delays during the initial implementation period, there has been significant progress in implementation of activities in recent months,” the Washington-based multilateral lender said.

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Equipment purchases

“Significant progress was achieved under component one, with a number of contracts being signed,” it said.

The bank said the contracts were for the purchase of mechanical ventilators, portable X-ray machines, N95 masks, gowns, and gloves totaling $27.2 million, or 27 percent of the total project amount.

Packages for civil works under component two “have progressed to the preprocurement stage,” the World Bank said.

The project’s first component was aimed at strengthening the country’s emergency response to the new coronavirus, while the second component was intended to fortify national and subnational laboratory capacities to prevent emerging infectious diseases.