The China Construction Second Engineering Bureau won a $1.2 billion contract to build an 8-km subway line around Makati, the high-end commercial district of Manila, the capital of the Philippines.

Earlier this month, President Rodrigo Duterte ignored US sanctions against certain large Chinese contractors and continued to develop business cooperation with large Chinese contractors. The 8-km subway line is a joint venture project with the local government of Makati City, and part of the funds will be funded by Chinese investors.

China Construction Second Engineering Bureau is a department of China State Construction Engineering Corporation. China State Construction Engineering Corporation is the world's largest construction company. It itself has not been subject to the latest sanctions by the United States.

Antonio Tiou, CEO of Infradev Holdings, a Philippine company in charge of the project, said that the second construction bureau of China Construction will start construction after the country’s epidemic blockade ends. The subway is 8 kilometers long and is scheduled to be completed in 2025; It will be able to accommodate up to 700,000 passengers.

Affected by the epidemic, data released by the Philippine National Statistics Agency showed that the Philippines' GDP in the second quarter shrank by 16.5% year-on-year, setting a record low in 39 years (1981). At present, the Philippines is planning to rely on the 180 billion U.S. dollar infrastructure construction plan to stimulate the country's economic recovery. According to data, in the first six months of this year, the Philippine Investment Agency approved as many as 96 infrastructure projects, and the investment amount increased by 112% year-on-year. This will also add up to 27,082 jobs to the local area.

As early as late November 2018, China and the Philippines reached cooperation and agreed to cooperate in infrastructure construction and other aspects within the next 10 years. Up to now, China and the Philippines have signed 14 inter-governmental infrastructure cooperation projects, and 3 of them have been successfully completed.

In recent years, with the rapid development of China’s economy, infrastructure construction has entered a new level, laying a solid foundation for rapid economic growth; benefiting from China’s influence, the Philippines has taken China as an example in the field of infrastructure construction. Revitalize the country’s economy and resolve to develop transportation infrastructure.Editor/Huang Lijun