Iloilo City (CNN Philippines) — The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in September and October in Iloilo City will still be held at the Iloilo Convention Center (ICC), according to local organizing committee (LOC) Executive Director Junel Ann Divinagracia.
The Department of Public Works and Highways earlier reported that the building is 98 percent complete and will be finished by the end of August.
“Everything that is scheduled for the APEC hosting will be pushed through,” said Divinagracia.
She said they got assurance that the ICC will be completed in time for the meetings as it will be tentatively inaugurated by September 14.
“As to our preparations, we are ironing out everything and the city government will be spending an estimated of P5 million to include the preparations since last year,” she added.
The expenses include dinner for about 2,000 delegates, coordination meetings and travels and the side event of the Department of Trade and Industry.
The ICC will be the venue of three APEC meetings:
September 21 to 25: Small and Medium Enterprise ministerial meeting
September 22 to 23: Senior Disaster Management Officials Forum
September 28 to October 6: High Level Policy Dialogue on Food Security and the Blue Economy
Department of Public Works and Highway Regional Dir. Edilberto Tayao also said the ICC is already 98 percent complete but additional work forced them to extend the construction period.
The Phase 2 of the ICC project includes installation of electrical and other amenities which was supposed to end July 31.
Members of the APEC local organizing committee visited the building to assess the works and find out the materials needed for the meetings.
“The facilities for the meeting will be under the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA), however, we in the DPWH will help them,” Tayao said.
Tayao said they will also work on the parking area around ICC since it is one of the concerns of the delegates.
