Manila: Philippines President Benigno Aquino has said the government needs P361 billion ($8.59 billion or Dh30 billion) to rebuild the central region, which was heavily damaged by Typhoon Haiyan on November 8.

The figure is 60 per cent higher than an earlier official estimate of $5 billion in rehabilitation costs, observers said.

In a campaign to raise funds from international funding agencies and the private sector for the project, Aquino said, “Every dollar of funding assistance will be used in as efficient and as lasting a manner as possible.”

Aquino told representatives of foreign funding agencies and private businessmen that they had a crucial role to play.

“Your help is all the more necessary today, because in confronting the escalating effects of climate change the resources of countries like the Philippines will be strained to the limit,” the President said.

“From now until December 2014 we will be preoccupied with critical immediate investments such as the rebuilding and repair of infrastructure and the construction of temporary houses … Large investments will be spread over multiple years and hopefully be completed by 2017, if not earlier,” said Aquino.

“The task immediately before us lies in ensuring that the communities that rise again do so stronger, better and more resilient than before,” he added.

Typhoon Haiyan, locally called Typhoon Yolanda, with wind speeds of up to 315km/h, killed 8,000 people, including 1,700 missing.

The storm affected 11 million residents of 44 provinces in central Philippines — five million of whom lost their homes and jobs.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Aresnio Balisacan, head of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) which prepared the Reconstruction Assistance on Yolanda Plan (RAYP), said the government will undertake projects in seven areas:

— Shelter and resettlement (P183.3 billion or Dh15.27 billion)

— Industry and services (P70.6 billion or Dh5.8 billion) s

— Education and health services (P37.4 billion or Dh3.116 billion) — Public infrastructure (P28.4 billion or Dh2.36 billion)

— Agriculture (P18.7 billion or Dh1.5 billion)

— Social protection (P18.4 billion or Dh1.5 billion)

— Local government (P4 billion or Dh333 million)

About P34.50 billion (Dh2.87 billion) of the project funds was already allocated in the 2014 budget. This pertains to the so-called short term interventions, which have a total cost of P90.6 billion (Dh7.55 billion), Balisacan said, adding the government will need P235.8 billion (Dh19.65 billion) to finance the rehabilitation from 2015 to 2017.

The rehabilitation cost was based on an estimate that Typhoon Haiyan’s damage in Leyte and Samar provinces reached P571 billion ($12.9 billion or Dh47.58 billion), Balisacan said, adding that damage included P354.72 billion (Dh29.56 billion) suffered by the social sectors; P178.11 billion (Dh14.84 billion), economic sectors; P33.98 billion (Dh2.83 billion), infrastructure; and P4.3 billion (Dh358.3 million), identified as cross-sectoral.

Ninety per cent of the damage cost was suffered by the private sector, and 10 per cent by the public sector, said Balisacan, adding this means the private sector will play a major role in the rehabilitation of typhoon-damaged areas.

“The government seeks to enable new modalities to encourage and facilitate the active involvement of the private sector in implementing RAYP,” said Balisacan.

The government has an investment scheme that allows the private sector to invest in public infrastructure projects.

Earlier, the World Bank and the Manila-based Asian Development Bank pledged a total of $1.5 billion (P63 billion or Dh5.25 billion) loan package to the Philippine government.

The amount, however, leaves a shortfall of $7.09 billion (P297.78 billion or Dh24.815 billion) from the Philippine government’s $8.59 billion rehabilitation cost.

In comparison, Aceh needed $7 billion to rebuild in eight years after it was devastated by the tsunami in 2004.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has asked member countries to raise $791 million in relief aid for typhoon Haiyan survivors.

The UN had previously said it aimed to raise $384 million in relief assistance. The Philippine government has received a total of $128 million out of the $484 million pledges that came from 44 countries.

Typhoon Haiyan is the strongest on recordto hit the perennially storm-ravaged Philippines.