Nz Consortium Awarded A Multi Million Dollar Project In The Philippines

A consortium of New Zealand companies has secured exclusive rights to examine the feasibility of a waste management development in the province of Batangas Bay, south of Manila in the Philippines.

Associate Foreign Minister Simon Upton, said today, "New Zealand's involvement in the NZ$20-30 million environmental project had been stimulated by a grant under New Zealand's Overseas Development Assistance Programme."

The companies who have formed this consortium include McConnell International, Perry Waste Services, and United Environmental. The consortium has also retained two leading New Zealand engineering consultants, PB Power and Duffill Watts and King, as specialist advisers.

Mr Upton said NZODA had long supported the Public Private Partnership Scheme which developed following the 1992 UN Conference on the Environment and Development. The aim of the scheme is to bring together public investors, such as municipal authorities, and the private sector to address environmental problems in urban areas in developing countries. Sustainable Project Management (SPM), a non-profit organisation based in Switzerland, had drawn on a NZODA contribution to identify project possibilities in this sector and to bring together public and private sector interest to work up a project financing and feasibility package.

SPM will now be working with the Philippines public sector and the New Zealand consortium to put together the formal partnerships and help create a new company to perform the work.

"NZODA's support of the Public Private Partnership Scheme has been key to the success of the work to date", Mr Upton concluded.