Officer-in-charge Executive Director Maria Enriquez
National Agricultural and Fishery Council
Regional Executive Director Larry Nacionales
Department of Agriculture – Region VI
Vice President Daniel Onate
Soiltech Agriculture Products Corporation
Mr. Rommel S. Herrera
Department of Finance,
Mr. Kevin Fitzgerald
Crown Agents
Distinguished guests,
Farmer-beneficiaries in Iloilo,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is a great pleasure for me to participate in the turnover ceremony of the shipment of fertilizers procured by the Philippine Government with the assistance of Japan's 8 th Non-Project Grant Aid to the Philippines, amounting to 700 million Yen, which is approximately 354 Million Pesos. This aid was formalized in February last year by the exchange of notes signed between Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo and myself.
With great efforts by the Department of Finance, Department of Agriculture, especially its National Agriculture and Fishery Council, the Crown Agents, and other related agencies, this time, the Philippine Government has procured approximately 42,000 metric tons of fertilizers in total. I hope that the fertilizers will help farmers improve the productivity for the next planting season, and will mitigate the damage to agricultural crops caused by the strong typhoons last year.
Japan has provided the Philippine Government with the 8 batches of the Non-Project Grant Aid amounting to a total value of 15.8 billion Yen, which is approximately 8.0 Billion Pesos. This has been used for the procurement of commodities such as fertilizers, soybean meal, fuel oil, and steel billets, contributing to improvement of the economic structure of the Philippines.
In addition, the Counter-value Fund accumulated by the Philippine Government through selling those commodities has assisted the country to support various kinds of socio-economic development projects. For example, the Philippine Government is implementing the project to distribute personal computers to public high schools nationwide, and the project to construct the Philippine Judicial Academy Development Center of the Supreme Court in Tagaytay.
I am confident that, by selling the 42,000 metric tons of fertilizers, the Philippine Government will establish a substantial amount of Counter-value Fund with which it will help implement new significant projects to promote the welfare of the Filipino people.
In closing, I would like to express my sincere hope that Japan's assistance through the Non-Project Grant Aid will serve as another bridge that will further strengthen the cooperative ties and the strategic partnership between the two countries.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Embassy of Japan in the Philippines