The International Finance Corp. (IFC) said it would approve next month the funding requirement of the South Luzon Tollway Corp. (SLTC) for the rehabilitation of the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX).

The SLTC is a joint venture of government-owned Philippine National Construction Corp. (PNCC) and Malaysian toll operator MTD Capital Bhd.

“We are processing the loan [of SLTC] at the moment and we expect to reach financial closure by end of November,” Vipul Bhagat, IFC country manager, told reporters.

IFC, the private-sector lending arm of the World Bank, will provide $50-million loan to SLTC, and will also help raise additional $50 million to $60 million financing from either domestic or foreign banks.

The P8-billion project has three phases: the rehabilitation of the Alabang viaduct, the widening of the expressway from Filinvest in Alabang, to Calam-ba in Laguna province and the extension from Calamba to Santo Tomas in Batangas province, thus connecting the SLEX to the Southern Tagalog Arterial Road (STAR).

Under the plan, the 1.2-kilometer Alabang viaduct will be widened to eight lanes because the existing six lanes will create a bottleneck when the Skyway is extended.

However, according to The Manila Times sources from the Department of Transportation and Communication the Alabang viaduct’s redesign is yet to be approved by the Toll Regulatory Board.

The revised design involves the erection of stronger foundations and the use of better grade steel on the structure.

The repair and widening of the Alabang viaduct is the first phase of the $200-million South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) project, which aims to improve the volume capacity, riding quality and structural integrity of the superstructure and to replace the bridgedeck from the current 6 lanes to a new 8-lane bridgeway.

Also, the existing 27.3-kilometer Alabang-Calamba expressway will be widened from four lanes to eight lanes to decongest it, particularly up to the Santa Rosa section in Laguna, or some 15.6 kilometers of the expressway.

The Santa Rosa-Calamba stretch covering 11.7 kilometers will be widened to six lanes from the present four.

The third component, the 7.6-kilometer extension of the SLEX from Calamba to STAR, will extend the highway to the Batangas City international seaport.

Once the project is completed, the expressway would run to 37 km, and is expected to decongest Metro Manila by opening up new centers of business and industry in the southern corridor.

At present, the SLEX accommodates 150,000 vehicles a day and over 60 percent of all produce in Luzon passes through it.