By Neil Jerome Morales
MANILA (Reuters) – China on Saturday promised to donate 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to the Philippines as the two countries signed infrastructure agreements to advance recovery efforts after the pandemic, officials said.
The President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, in March last year imposed one of the world’s longest and strictest closure measures to contain the virus – which brought one of Asia’s fastest growing economies to a standstill.
“As a friend of the Philippines and your closest neighbor, we will stand firm with the people of the Philippines until the defeat of this virus,” senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi said during a meeting with the Philippines’ foreign minister said.
Wang’s talks in Manila completed a visit to four Southeast Asian countries.
Since its adoption in 2016, Duterte has sought warmer ties with Beijing and set aside a territorial space in exchange for promises of aid, loans and grants.
“China is playing a very important role in restoring our region’s economy,” he said on Saturday. “Let us do everything in our power to revive economic activity between the Philippines and China.”
The presidential palace said in a statement that China said it would donate 500,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to the Philippines, without saying which vaccines would be offered.
With nearly 499,000 cases of coronavirus and nearly 9,900 deaths, the Philippines has the second highest number of infections and deaths after Indonesia in the region, but Manila followed its neighbors by vaccinating doses.
Duterte said he prefers to get COVID-19 vaccines from China or Russia, and the country buys 25 million doses of the experimental vaccine developed by Chinese vaccine maker Sinovac Biotech, with the first 50,000 expected in February .
On Saturday, officials from the two countries signed an agreement for a $ 500 million ($ 77 million) grant from China to fund infrastructure, livelihoods and other projects in the Philippines.
They also signed the commercial contract for a $ 940 million (71-kilometer) railway scheme north of the capital, the Beijing ambassador to Manila said in a statement.
(Posted by Neil Jerome Morales; Edited by Clelia Oziel and Helen Popper)