The government has reset the groundbreaking of the massive development of war-torn Marawi City from July to late August after negotiations with a China-led consortium broke down.
Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) chair Eduardo del Rosario announced that government’s negotiations with Bangon Marawi Consortium (BMC) for the R16 billion Marawi development were unsuccessful after it failed to meet certain financial, technical, and legal requirements.
The government instead started to negotiate with another Chinese group, Power Construction Corporation of China or PowerChina, as a potential Marawi developer, according to Del Rosario, chair of Task Force Bangon Marawi.
“Unfortunately, we could not meet that indicative timeline because we had an unsuccessful negotiation with the Bangon Marawi Consortium and now we are on the process of negotiating with the next in line, which is the China Power,” Del Rosario said during a Palace press briefing.
“With regards to the details of the ongoing negotiations, I was informed that the groundbreaking is reset on the third or last week of August. So with this new development, we could not undertake the groundbreaking this month so instead it will be on third or fourth week of August,” he aded.
Del Rosario assured that the delay in the groundbreaking would not affect the target date of completion, which is last quarter of 2021.
“With regards to the timeline set by the government, we are on time. We program the rehabilitation in such a way that we will be able to complete not later than December of 2021,” he said.
The BMC, composed of Filipino and Chinese property developers, earlier proposed a R16-billion development plan to rebuild 250 hectares of Marawi’s ground zero.
