PHL, Japan to complete talks on new MRT-3 maintenance agreement

By Patrizia Paola C. Marcelo
Reporter

TALKS BETWEEN the Philippine and Japanese governments for a new maintenance deal for the Metro Rail Transit-3 (MRT-3)are seeing progress with exchange of notes verbales to be completed by today, Jan. 8.

“The exchange of note verbales [notes verbale] between the governments of Japan and the Philippines will be completed tomorrow,” Department of Transportation [DoTr] Assistant Secretary for Railways Timothy John Batan said yesterday in a text message.

Mr. Batan declined to give more details on the contents of the notes verbales. The DoTr said in November that it was in high-level discussions with the Japanese government “to pave the way for DoTr’s direct engagement” of previous MRT maintenance provider Sumitomo Corp. and its technical partner Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, under a Government to Government (G2G) Official Development Assistance (ODA) platform.

The DoTr previously said it targeted to have an agreement signed by the end of 2017.

The agency said that the joint venture of Sumitomo and Mitsubishi Heavy is being considered due to their previous experience with the MRT. The companies designed and built the system from 1998 to 2000, and maintained the system from 2000 to 2012.

DoTr Secretary Arthur P. Tugade previously told reporters that a new maintenance provider is expected to be in place by this year.

DoTr in November terminated its contract with Busan Universal Rail, Inc. (BURI), citing BURI’s alleged failure to ensure efficient and available trains and failure to procure the proper spare parts.

The DoTr has granted original proponent status to Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC), which offered a P20-billion investment to rehabilitate the train system, as well as the handling of operations for a period of 30 to 32 years.

LRMC currently manages the Light Rail Transit-1 (LRT-1). The consortium is composed of Metro Pacific Investment Corp. (MPIC)’s Metro Pacific Light Rail Corp., Ayala Corp.’s AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp., and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings (Philippines) Pte. Ltd.

MPIC is one of three key Philippine units of Hong Kong-based First Pacific Co. Ltd., the investment management and holding company of Indonesia’s Salim family.

MPIC’s other units are Philex Mining Corp. and PLDT, Inc. Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a majority stake in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls.