PBC prods government on ecozone applications

The 43rd Philippine Business Conference (PBC) yesterday passed a resolution urging Malacañang to fast track the presidential proclamation of several pending economic zone applications already approved by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) to keep the economic growth momentum especially in the regions.

This particular resolution formed part of the 10-Point Resolutions approved yesterday by the PBC, the country’s largest annual business gathering organized by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), and submitted to President Rodrigo Duterte, who was the guest speaker at the conclusion of the 43rd PBC held at the Manila Hotel. (Full text of the Resolutions on B-5) PCCI President George Barcelon said this was the first time for the PBC to pass this particular resolution noting this issue has caused some concern among PEZA ecozone investors.

Barcelon said the passage of this resolution in this PBC was prompted by complaints by its affiliate business organization, including the IT-Business Process Association of the Philippines.

He explained that if there will be no presidential proclamation, some affected investors will also hold back their projects.

According to Barcelon, investors felt that the previous administration was quite quick in granting Presidential Proclamation to ecozone applications that have already been approved by PEZA, which is chaired by the Secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry.

“But we cannot also blame the government for doing due diligence,” he said. The PEZA approval though of these projects already meant that government had done due diligence on these investments.

As of July this year, PEZA DirectorGeneral Charito B. Plaza said there were 46 special economic zones with estimated investments of R30.6 billion awaiting Presidential Proclamation by Malacanang.

Of these investments, Plaza said that six were approved by PEZA during the Aquino administration and 40 already under the current administration. So far, Malacanang has only proclaimed 16 ecozones.

Plaza had raised concern over the delays in the proclamation of these ecozones because the registered locators cannot build unless these ecozones were they are supposed to locate were already proclaimed by Malacanang.

When a company registers a project with PEZA, it is supposed to have already identified the location.

PEZA had also offered to investors the remaining spaces in their public ecozones like the ones in Pampanga and Mactan or they can go to existing private ecozones, but these investors have their own preferences also.

“So we’re asking them to hold on because they’ve been pressing us for how many months already and they might be thinking of transferring,” said Plaza. In fact, she said, one registered company wanting to locate in a new ecozone in Cebu was already thinking of transferring.

“We already sent three or four followup letters to the office of Executive Secretary (Salvador) Medialdea, but the proclamations are still pending. I don’t know why,” she said adding that she might need to do some backdoor representations.

Of the pending 46 ecozones, 27 are IT centers, 11 are manufacturing, five are IT parks, and one each for medical, agro and tourism.

PEZA has a total of 371 ecozones in the country but there are no longer enough spaces for upcoming investors.

Meantime, the 43rd PBC also approved resolutions on agriculture, education, energy and power, environment, industry development, legislative measures, transportation and logistics.

Barcelon said that the PBC Resolutions have been the same each year because the previous governments had not really acted nor implemented on their recommendations.