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hilippine and Japanese officials will meet Monday in the island of Mactan in Cebu province ?to discuss the progress in? the Duterte administration’s flagship infrastructure projects that Japan has committed to help finance through soft loans.

The meeting of the Philippines-Japan High-Level Committee on Infrastructure and Economic Cooperation is at the Shangrila Mactan in Lapu-Lapu City and will be the fourth dialogue to be held between the officials of the two countries since the first was held in Tokyo in March last year.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III will chair the Philippine delegation to the high-level meeting, which will also include key members of the government’s “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure team, while ?the Japanese side will be led by Dr. Hiroto Izumi, Special Adviser to Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

?The meeting will begin at 9am with opening remarks to be delivered by the respective representatives from the Philippine and Japanese delegations.

After the meeting, officials from the two sides are expected to sign the record of discussions and other documents related to the commitment on infrastructure cooperation between the Philippine and Japan. A press conference on the outcome of the meeting is scheduled at 12:30 pm also at the Shangri-la Mactan.

After attending the 31st ASEAN Summit and its Related Meetings in Manila hosted by President Duterte in November last year, Abe stayed behind for an official visit to witness the signing of several agreements with the Philippines, most notable of which was the Exchange of Notes for the 104.5 billion yen loan (about $929.1 million) to fund the first tranche of loan requirements for the construction of the Metro Manila Subway Project (Phase 1) of the Department of Transportation (DOTr).

Abe announced during his first visit to the country in January 2017 a total of 1 trillion yen ($9 billion) in official development assistance (ODA) and investments to the Philippines for the next five years. DMS