Investment pledges registered with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) reached
P39.631 billion in the January-September period this year.
In a report, PEZA Officer in Charge Deputy Director Tereso O. Panga said the approved investments were the combined investments from 148 new and expansion projects in the first nine months this year.
For the third quarter (July-September) Panga said the PEZA Board has approved a total of 58 new and expansion projects, which are expected to bring in P17.142 billion worth of investments, $877.807 million of exports, and create 13,904 jobs.
Among the approved new and expansion projects, 21 will be for export, 19 for IT, seven for facilities, and three for tourism.
In addition, eight ecozone development projects were approved to boost the Authority’s countryside development strategy—four manufacturing ecozones in Cavite, Batangas, Bulacan, and Pampanga; two IT parks in Iloilo and Davao; and two agro-industrial zones in Iloilo.
PEZA was also able to register and approve strategic investments in the country.
For the first nine months this year, PEZA has closed 20 big-ticket projects with minimum P1 billion capital per project or a total of P24.758 billion worth of investments, $654.338 million in annual exports, and 9,649 direct jobs.
These investments are engaged manufacturing of various products including SMS/EMS, accommodation, real Estate activities, office administrative, business support activities, among others.
The big-ticket investments include Cebu Mitsumi, Inc., Robinsons Land Corp., and TDK Philippines Corp.
Meanwhile, for the January to August 2022, PEZA also generated a total of $43.166 billion exports and created 1,798,152 direct jobs, which are 6.07 percent and 6.52 percent increase respectively as compared to the same period last year.
In terms of exports, PEZA’s ecozone exports account for the biggest share in the country’s total annual exports for the first half of the year.
For the last 4 years (H1 2019-2022), ecozone exports accounted for average 66.77 percent of the country’s total exports, 77.46 percent of the total PH goods exports, and 52.23 percent of the services exports.
Panga noted of a 7.7 percent increase of total PEZA Ecozone Exports while the Philippine Exports is 10
percent higher for the period of Jan-Jun 2021 vs 2022.
“We remain bullish that d we will be able to achieve our 6-7 percent investments target for the year taking into consideration the firm growth forecasts for 2022 of our winner ecozone sectors at 10- 15percent for IBPAP and 10 percrnt for SEIPI. These bright outlooks are aligned with the calibrated year end GDP growth for the Philippines at 6.5%- 7.5%, which makes the country among the fastest growing economies in the region,”
Panga remains positive that the ecozone industry can be a key contributor to the country’s economic growth this year as the new administration marked its first 100 days in office.
“We in PEZA assure the new administration under the President Bongbong Marcos Jr. and guided by the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) industrialization strategy that we can attract more investments for this last quarter of the year given the positive growth rate forecast of the ecozone semiconductor-electronics and IT sectors, the aggressive investment promotions by the President, and upcoming missions to Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. Now is the best time to invest as incentives had been boosted along with top-level political support to ecozones,” noted Panga.
In the first State of the Nation Address of PBBM in July, he highlighted at the beginning that “Ecozones will be fully supported to bring in strategic industries such as those engaged in high-tech manufacturing, health and medical care, and all emerging technologies. This is also seen to facilitate economic growth outside of Metro Manila.”
At the same time, PEZA is looking into new frontiers in ecozone development to cater to unique, strategic, and big-ticket investments coming into the Philippines. These new types of ecozones include, among others, the Knowledge, Innovation, Science and Technology Parks, Mineral Processing ecozone, Renewable Energy Hubs, Aquamarine Ecozones, Halal Hubs, Bio-tech Centers, Defense Industrial Complexes, and Pharmaceutical Parks.
“Guided by the new DTI strategic priorities, PEZA is eyeing to attract high-tech industries and emerging technologies in the fields of industrial manufacturing transport, technology media and telecommunications, health and life sciences including mineral processing of green metals,” said the PEZA interim chief.