The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) Board has approved 50 new projects with combined committed investments of P22.5 billion and jobs generation of 8,917.
PEZA Director General Charito “Ching” Plaza said these projects were approved during its Board meeting last July 10.
According to Plaza, of the 50 approved projects, 33 are expansion ventures of existing ecozone locators.
These projects are expected to bring in P13.8 billion and create 7,116 jobs once operational.
The remaining 17 new projects with combined investment pledges of P8.7 billion include 10 new economic zone developments and seven ecozone facilities enterprise projects. These projects have estimated employment of 1,801.
“The approval of new projects and investments is the agency’s positive action to continuously support the Philippine economy in our endeavor to maintain our competitiveness for investments despite the impact of COVID-19,” said Plaza.
As of May 2020, PEZA has registered a total of P29.54 billion investments and approved a total of 113 projects. The agency also directly employed a total of 1.6 million workers and generated $4.362 billion exports as of January 2020. In the midst of the evolving pandemic, Plaza said, “COVID-19 cannot stop PEZA in performing its mandate to register, manage, and operate public and private economic zones in the country. PEZA continues to attract investors to come and invest to the Philippines despite the crisis.”