The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) has made full use of the $400 million it wanted deployed for the investment vehicle known as the Philippine Investment Alliance for Infrastructure or (Pinai), its president and general manager said on Wednesday.
“We completed the investment of $400 million coming from the pension fund in Pinai,” GSIS President and General Manager Robert Vergara told financial reporters at a news briefing he called for the purpose.
Prior to the disclosure, the state-owned pension fund invested more or less only $300 million in the infrastructure fund designed to ensure the country’s growth path would be sustained not just for a year or two but for the long haul.
Vergara said since the Pinai fund was organized in 2012, the GSIS participated in a number of its infrastructure-related projects.
Going forward, Vergara also said the GSIS aims to invest in a number of infrastructure projects that addresses, for example, such problems as the lack of electricity in some parts of the country still facing a shortage of power.
“This is the money that we [wanted]to invest in core infrastructure projects in 2012. It took a while for it to get invested [as] we made our first investment in 2013. But with the investment in two solar-power plants in Negros, we have fully invested the portfolio and already it’s beginning to deliver gains on the money that was invested.” Vergara said.
The Pinai fund will be invested in various infrastructure pursuits, such as in airports, railways and even the Metro Rail Transit (MRT). With the investments that will be made, the state-owned pension fund helps address the sore lack of critical infrastructures not just in power generation, but in transport, telecommunications and others.
“So we completed the investment of P400 million coming from the pension fund, and there are submissions of 20 to 25 coming from three other partners that are what we call fully committed. Randomly, our investments are in good health and well diversified geographically across the country,” according to Vergara. He explained that solar-power plants is one mode or area of addressing the shortage of electricity in the Visayas region, for example.
The Pinai fund is a $625-million investment vehicle designed to help boost the country’s capacity to expand in terms of the GDP by supporting growth-boosting projects in criticial sectors, such as power generation, logistics and telecommunication.
Its partners include the Asian Development Bank, Algemene Pension Groep and Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Asset. The fund was launched in 2012 and was dubbed as the largest infrastructure fund framework in the Philippines.