The Department of Finance (DOF) renewed an agreement allowing the Marcos administration to access South Korea’s official development assistance (ODA) under its Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) for the government’s infrastructure program.

DOF said in a statement that Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno and South Korea Deputy Prime Minister Kyungho Choo formally exchanged the final draft of the Framework Arrangement for EDCF.

The renewal of the Framework Arrangement will allow the Philippine government access up to $3 billion of official development assistance (ODA) from EDCF from 2022 to 2026.

The DOF said this will be funded by the Government of Korea through its Ministry of Economy and Finance.

According to the DOF, this proposed fresh fund is on top of the $1 billion that the South Korean government earlier committed under an ongoing Framework Arrangement for 2017 to 2022.

Diokno said yhe ODA shall be used to finance the Marcos administration’s infrastructure development plan called the Build, Better, More Program.

“We express our deep gratitude to South Korea — one of our largest providers — for its continuing support to the administration’s Build Better More Program,” Diokno said.

The renewed Framework Arrangement for 2022 to 2026 is targeted to be signed at a later date, the DOF said.

South Korea is one of the largest providers of ODA to the Philippines, with loan and grant commitments amounting to around $850.88 million.

Aside from South Korea, the Japanese government had also vowed continued support to the Philippine government’s infrastructure push under the Marcos administration.

Diokno said that Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Kazuhiko Koshikawa reaffirmed during their recent meeting of Tokyo’s strong economic partnership with Manila.

In particular, Diokno said that Japan committed its support to President Marcos’ infrastructure development program.

“The Ambassador reiterated Japan’s continued support for the Philippines' massive infrastructure program, the development of Subic Bay and Mindanao, and other sectoral cooperation in health, energy, agriculture, and ICT, among other areas,” Diokno said.

Japan’s financial contribution to the Philippines’ nation-building efforts under the previous Duterte administration reached 1.38 trillion yen, well over the one-trillion yen mark committed by the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2017.

Japan is also the Philippines’ largest provider of ODA, which has committed loans and grants amounting to around $10.2 billion, or 31.8 percent of the country’s total ODA portfolio, as of December 2021.