PLANS for a $US 3.5bn 8km underground metro in the city of Makati appear to have been abandoned after one of the companies appointed to deliver the project declared it to be “no longer economically and operationally feasible”.
Philippine InfraDev which, together with Chinese consortium partners, entered into a public-private partnership (PPP) agreement with the Makati city government in 2019 said on May 2 that a boundary dispute between Makati and neighbouring Taguig had culminated in a Supreme Court ruling that some stations, and the proposed depot, were no longer within Makati city limits.
According to the Bangkok Post, the company has applied to Singapore International Arbitration Centre to seek "to enable an impartial resolution of the joint venture agreement with the City of Makati."
Construction work had started on the project, but is now understood to have stopped. The eight-station line was originally due to be completed this year and would have carried around 700,000 passengers per day.
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