Committed investments registered with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) in April this year reached P20.566 billion, jumping by 162.37 percent from P7.834 billion in April 2022, and bringing total investments in the first four months to P33.094 billion, or 107.15 percent higher versus the same period last year.
PEZA Director General Tereso O. Panga noted that despite the fewer number of projects in April this year with only 16 versus 26 same month last year, the new projects were bigger in terms of project cost. With that, the April committed investments went up 162.37 percent to P20.566 billion from the P7.834 billion worth of investments approved in April 2022. The huge April projects also brought total approved enterprises to 60 new and expansion projects registered  in the January-April period worth P33.094 billion, or 107.15 percent higher compared with the P15.975 billion approved in the same January-April period last year.
The new committed projects are also expected to generate 7,469 direct jobs.

For April alone, the PEZA Board greenlighted 14 new and expansion projects expected to create 2,233 jobs. These projects include seven logistics service enterprise, four export manufacturing, and three IT enterprises. These projects will be located in Baguio, Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Cebu, and South Cotabato, he said.

The biggest project pre-qualified by the PEZA Board for approval by the Fiscal and Incentives Review Board is engaged in the manufacturing of biomass fuel products made from Buyo-buyo (Piper aduncum-shrub), with investments worth P19.701 billion.
Meantime, Panga reported that for the first quarter of the year, PEZA also recorded a total of $15.753 billion in actual exports.
In March alone, Panga said, “We have generated $5.396 billion export revenues which account for 82.65 percent of the total country's $6.528 billion exports in March this year.”

“We believe that we are now reaping the results of the ongoing investment missions of President Ferdinand Marcos and his administration’s investment initiatives and it is now up to us to follow through the pledges,” explained Panga.

The PEZA chief noted, “We remain positive that more investments will come to the Philippines with the big-ticket investments that we secured during the President's visits to Japan, US, and Switzerland among others.”

Panga noted that $1.3 billion in investment pledges and 6,700 jobs generated from the President's trip to the US is an indication of the American investors' renewed interest in the country.

Based on the investment climate statement on the Philippines by the US Department of State, “The business environment is notably better within the special economic zones, particularly those available for export businesses operated by PEZA, known for its regulatory transparency, no red-tape policy, and one-stop shop services for investors.”

With the recently working visits of the President and his key cabinet and business delegation to the US, UK, Indonesia, Panga stated that, “We hope to attract FDI in advanced manufacturing, EV industry, RE development, mineral processing, regenerative agriculture, and frontier technologies particularly in digital health, fintech, blockchain, AI and big data—to boost our mix of industries and value-adding in the ecozones.”