Sixty-seven new projects with potential investments of P18.8 billion were approved by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) in October-November period as the government’s export-oriented investment generating arm gears up to exceed P100 billion investments level in approved investment pledges in this pandemic year.

PEZA Director-General Charito B. Plaza reported at the launch of the Global Biz With PEZA, a monthly investors’ forum of the agency, that the new 67 committed investments are expected to generate a total of 9,547 jobs once fully operational.

Broken down, Plaza said they approved 33 projects for the month of October with combined investments of P4.154 billion with jobs generation of 5,656 and 34 projects this month (November) with P14.646 billion and 3,893 jobs.

Of the total projects approved in the two-month period, 21 are export enterprises, 15 are IT projects, 11 ecozone developers, 7 facilities enterprises, 4 logistics, and 2 utilities firms. The bulk or 54 of these projects are situated in Luzon, 12 in Visayas and 1 in Mindanao.

The new committed investments have broughT down the PEZA investments for the January-November period to P91.446 billion.

In fact, Plaza said the agency might exceed more than P100 billion investment level this year given the positive response from existing and new interests. She said existing investors have expressed interest to continue with their expanding plans.

 “Two or three companies are transferring from China to the Philippines, and one is an Israeli investor,” She said. The Israeli investor, which identity could not yet be revealed, has 16 branches in China and would like to bring all those 16 branches to the Philippines. Plaza had initial talks with the Israeli firm last week. “We are now helping them to facilitate their application,” she added.

“By December we will be 100 percent operational,” said Plaza adding this is the reason PEZA is facilitating all the assistance and in the granting of reprieves to locators so they could return to their pre-COVID level of operation.

Based on PEZA’s status of operation Nov 2-6, 200, at least 87 percent or 2,627 of their enterprises nationwide are already in full operation while 13 percent or 388 firms are still not operating or partly operational. This means 71 percent or 1,048,749 workers are back to work and only 29 percent or 432,747 still out of work.

Plaza urged their registered enterprises to avail of the approved assistance and reprieves, particularly the inclusion of COVID-19 related expenses in the deduction for the 5 percent tax on gross income earned. The Bureau of Internal Revenue has agreed to include these deductions including the additional port charges.

 “Keep your receipts,” she urged the PEZA locator as these are basis for their claims for tax deductions upon filing of their income tax return next year.

The new opportunities and potentials that PEZA has discovered during the challenging pandemic period has made Plaza to surmise that “COVID seems to be a best friend of PEZA because COVID has provided us with all these opportunities and we will do our best and attract investors.”

PEZA administers the tax and fiscal incentives of enterprises located in its 408 operating ecozones nationwide, including four public ecozones.