ADB pushes $300-million MRT-4 loan approval to 2030
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has pushed back its planned approval of a co-financed $500-million, or roughly ₱31.37-billion, loan for Metro Rail Transit Line 4 (MRT-4) to 2030, four years later than originally scheduled.
In a project data sheet (PDS) updated last Tuesday, Oct. 6, the Manila-based multilateral lender said it is targeting to approve financing for MRT-4 by March 29, 2030, more than eight years after the project was first added to the ADB’s loan pipeline.
The ADB will source $300 million of the loan from its ordinary capital resources (OCR), while the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will cover the remaining $200 million.
The $500-million loan program is expected to cover only the first tranche of the financing required by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) to support the development of the railway project.
The latest approval timeline for the financing is four years behind the ADB’s original schedule of the third quarter of this year, raising uncertainty over whether the project can still meet its earlier construction timetable.
The ADB earlier said construction of MRT-4 was planned to begin in the second quarter of 2027 and run until the first quarter of 2031, followed by full operations in the fourth quarter of the same year.
To secure a loan facility from the ADB and the AIIB, the DOTr earlier introduced a resettlement framework in the form of transit-oriented development (TOD) to ensure economic benefits for those affected by the project.