Partnership forged for dev't of Luzon Economic Corridor

WASHINGTON – The Philippines, the US and Japan vowed to cooperate on an “economic corridor” in Luzon during their first-ever trilateral summit here, which also saw them committing to develop critical and emerging technologies and to work together on clean energy supply chains.

- Alexis Romero

President Marcos, US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida committed to accelerate coordinated investments in high-impact infrastructure projects, including rail, ports modernization, clean energy and semiconductor supply chains and deployments, agribusiness and civilian port upgrades in Subic Bay through what they called the Luzon Economic Corridor.

“Today we are launching the Luzon Economic Corridor, which will support connectivity between Subic Bay, Clark, Manila and Batangas in the Philippines,” the leaders said in a joint vision statement yesterday.

“We plan to work with multilateral organizations and the private sector to attract quality, transformative investments,” they added.

The three leaders said the Luzon corridor – part of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment-Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) Accelerator – is a demonstration of their enhanced economic cooperation focused on “delivering tangible investments across multiple sectors.”

Manila, Washington and Tokyo are also partnering to expand cooperation and investments in other areas of the Philippines, they added. Marcos, Biden and Kishida announced a plan to hold a trilateral event promoting investment in the Luzon Economic Corridor on the margins of the Indo-Pacific Business Forum in Manila in May.

They said the US International Development Finance Corp. also aims to open a regional office in the Philippines to facilitate further investments across the country.