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Manila Bulletin devider Business devider Banking & Finance devider Upcoming $600-million World Bank loan to help upskill Filipino workers

Upcoming $600-million World Bank loan to help upskill Filipino workers

Published Jun 5, 2025 05:38 pm
A $600-million (over ₱33-billion) loan scheduled to be greenlit by the Washington-based World Bank in December is aiming to not only help sustain robust economic expansion in the Philippines but also ensure that Filipino workers are ready to reap growth-induced employment.
In a June 2 program information document (PID), the World Bank said its forthcoming Philippines growth and jobs development policy loan (DPL) is expected to be approved by its board on Dec. 11, 2025.
The Department of Finance (DOF) will borrow on behalf of the Philippine government for this loan, which will be jointly implemented by the following agencies: Department of Education (DepEd), Board of Investments (BOI), Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA), Early Childhood Care and Development Council (ECCDC), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev), Department of Budget and Management (DBM), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), National Innovation Council (NIC), National Tax Research Center (NTRC), and Government Procurement Policy Board (GPPB).
"The DPL series aims to support the government of the Philippines strengthen fiscal management, enhance business opportunities, and build labor force capabilities," the World Bank said.
Specifically, the loan will partly focus on reforms that aim to boost tax revenues as a share of gross domestic product (GDP), increase the number of local government units (LGUs) with updated real property valuations, as well as shorten the time and cost for national government agencies (NGAs) to procure goods and services, the document said.
The loan also targets reforms to raise the ratio of shares traded relative to domestic market capitalization, increase the value of tax-deductible expenditures, as well as shorten the registration and permitting process for foreign firms, it added.
Additionally, the upcoming World Bank financing seeks to expand the share of technical-vocational education and training (TVET) graduates with enterprise-based training, enhance student performance in reading and literacy, as well as increase the number of early-career workers—especially newly certified women—holding National Certificate 3 qualifications.
As Manila Bulletin reported earlier, the Philippines will borrow a total of $7.85 billion, or over ₱437 billion, from the World Bank in the next two years under their new six-year Country Partnership Framework (CPF) or lending program supportive of the country's climb to upper-middle-income country (UMIC) status.
The World Bank Group (WBG) plans to extend to the Philippines between $22 billion and $23 billion—or as much as over ₱1.2 trillion—in loans and other financing starting mid-2025 until mid-2031, covering fiscal years (FYs) 2026 to 2031.
For the remainder of the current FY 2025 ending this month, the World Bank still has three Philippine loans to approve: the $4-million Roads to Development, scheduled for board approval on June 16; the biggest-ever single loan amounting to $1 billion for the Philippines Sustainable Agriculture Transformation Program on June 27; as well as $240.6-million Accelerated Water and Sanitation Project in Selected Areas, also on June 27.
The first two loans scheduled for approval in the next FY 2026, which starts in July 2025, include the $700-million Philippines Community Resilience Project-Pagkilos on July 28, and $600-million Project for Learning Upgrade Support and Decentralization (PLUS-D) on Sept. 26 this year.

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World Bank Group (WBG) country partnership framework (CPF) Department of Finance (DOF)
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