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| Japan PM Shinzo Abe and Noynoy Aquino about to commit the | Great Train Robbery |
Japan and the JapBoys’ great train robbery on Filipinos.
hermantiulaurel2015.blogspot.
November 21, 2015
With either the complicity or the ignorance of mainstream media the vast majority of Filipinos will again be ripped off in another multi-billion pesos (and U.S. Dollar) infrastructure scam. But certainly the JapBoys in the Philippine government and ruling class, and the Japanese government and financial mafia are part of the plot.
Mainstream media like the
Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Philippine Star, Business World et al, and the
big broadcast media, are presenting the scam as “assistance of the Japanese
government” to the Filipino people – while it is actually a project that will
cost more than double of what it should.
This was how it was being reported “’Japan pledges record ODA for train project’...
THE PHILIPPINES on Wednesday received a record pledge from Japan worth ¥240 billion for a rail project between Manila and a neighboring province, as well as assurances on future security cooperation, including the supply of defense equipment.”
ODA, my ass… this is how another newspaper reported it on November 20, 2015 01:43:00 PM
By Vince Alvic Alexis F. Nonato, Reporter “.P93-B loan for rail link tops Japan commitment to PHL… JAPAN has formally committed itself to extending a ¥241.991-billion (P93.457 billion) loan for the construction of the railway project linking Metro Manila to neighboring Bulacan province in the north.
The loan, roughly equivalent to US$2 billion, is the single largest Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitment by Japan to an overseas development partner…
“In a brief statement on
Thursday evening, the Japanese Embassy said Japanese Ambassador Kazuhide
Ishikawa and Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert F. del Rosario ‘exchanged
notes’ for the yen loan funding the North-South Commuter Railway (NSCR) Project….
“During a joint press conference with Mr. Abe the previous night, Mr. Aquino said the project ‘will certainly help us improve the land transportation capacity of the greater Metro Manila area and provide a more environmentally sustainable mode of transport.’…
“The DFA first announced the loan for the revival of the northward rail link in August, saying it was one of the pledges made by Japan apart from enhanced sharing of defence equipment….”
P 93-B ($ 2-B) for 34 Kms. Train is $ P 1-B/Km. overprice!!!
Why do we know it is overpriced by at least that much – P 1-B/Km, or a total of P 34-B overprice for the entire project? Do the math, the Japanese loan offer for the project totalling P 93-B divided by 34-kilometer comes up to P 2.8-B/km. of rail line. We can compare this to another project a neighboring country just singed two months ago.
Thus we have a very easy comparison that can be made to one of the major train contracts in the region just signed for a 145 kilometer, 250-km./hour speed train traversing the distance between Indonesia’s capital city Jakarta to its tourism hub Bandung. The Chinese government is providing $ 5-B (more or less, other reports say $ 5.5-B) loan for the entire project which after some calculation and currency conversion I did comes up to P 1.8 B/kilometre.
And China is providing the loan without requiring the Indonesian government o issue any “sovereign guarantee” (i.e. guaranteed fare rate and profit levels, escalation of fares every so many years, etc., as the MRT and all other Philippine PPP projects have) and without any counterpart investment from the Indonesian government. And below is a full report of that contract:
“Indonesia rewards China's
'courage' with high-profile rail contract
Wednesday, 30 Sep 2015 | 3:10 AM
ETReuters
Indonesia picked China over
Japan to build the country's first fast-train rail link because Beijing had the
courage to provide $5 billion in loans without asking for guarantees, an
Indonesian official said on Wednesday.
The two Asian giants had been
battling for months over the high-profile contract to build a railway linking
the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, with the textile hub of Bandung.
Indonesia initially envisaged a
high-speed service for the 150-km (100 mile) journey but this month changed its
mind, opting instead for a medium-speed train.
Analysts have said whoever won
the bid could be a front runner for future rail projects in the region,
including one linking Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.
President Joko Widodo's
administration preferred China's proposal because it was less burdensome and
promised a larger share of technology transfer than Japan.
‘The government of China has
courage not to ask for guarantees from Indonesia,’ Gatot Trihargo, deputy
assistant for the state-owned enterprises ministry, told Reuters on Wednesday.
‘While other countries like
Japan and Germany request government guarantees, we cannot afford this because our
budget is limited.’
The high-profile contract is a
victory for Chinese President Xi Jinping's ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative to
build a network of ports, trains and expressways to help expand trade,
investment and influence in the region.”
The Chinese government has the “courage” to work with its poorer Asian neighbour and brother Indonesia on a vital infrastructure project because China trusted the Indonesia leadership to be caring and responsible to its own people. Indonesia would not settle for less than the best and most affordable deal for its people, China could do no less and provide the most viable offer and afford able project sacrificing profit to achieve mutual benefit.
Japanese offer require “sovereign guarantees”
The Japanese government has been smarting from its massive losses to Chinese railway contractors winning all the way from Europe (see Chinese firms asked to build HS2 rail line as Chancellor invites bids for £12 billion contracts 06:30, 24 SEP 2015, BY JONATHAN WALKER, The Daily Mail)… worth £11.8 billion to build a high speed rail line between London and Birmingham) to Africa (see China rail group signs $5.5bn in Africa deals, Gabriel Wildau in Shanghai… FT, April 28, 2015) to the U.S. (see China rail firms in joint deal to build U.S. high-speed rail Thursday, 17 Sep 2015 | 3:21 AM ETReuters) and to Latin America (see China, Peru and Brazil mull Amazon railway, 23 May 2015...BBC)
Japan is now descending on the Philippines which has literally granted the Japanese a monopoly on the train projects in the Philippines, but the Japanese are not going to let go here of “sovereign guarantees even after they lost so miserably in Indonesia. Why? Because they have a sweet heart deal with the JapBoys (the other face of the AmBoys here). The Japansese say they will only “ease” development conditions, and we Filipinos will pay for these conditions while the Indonesians rejected them for the sake of their people.
Here’s a report -
Japan to ease development
loan conditions after losing Indonesia rail bid -sources
by Reuters
KYO, (Reuters) – Japan
will ease yen loan conditions for infrastructure projects in Asia, sources
familiar with the matter told Reuters, …. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will unveil
the new measures …
To facilitate yen loans to cash-strapped developing
countries, Japan will make flexible application of the rule that currently
requires a 100-percent loan guarantee from a borrower’s government, the sources
said….” Maybe they’ll now require on just a shade less than 100-percent loan
guarantee, how much less may depend on how low under the table it is. ###
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