Ecozone projects await Malacañang proclamation

Atotal of 52 economic zones with combined investments of R500 billion and approved by the Philippine Ecozone Zone Authority (PEZA) are still pending in Malacanang for about a year already, making investors wary of their projects.

PEZA Director-General Charito B. Plaza said only six of the 58 ecozones have been granted Presidential Proclamations so far.

“If these investors will change their minds, with some telling me their principals are looking at Vietnam if the Presidential Proclamations are not released, we will be losing these opportunities,” said Plaza noting that some of these ecozones have locators already but cannot start because these ecozones have not yet been proclaimed.

“I hope they will be proclaimed because they have been waiting for long,” she added.

PEZA has kept an “aging matrix” to keep track of these ecozone approvals and the matrix showed that most of them had been endorsed to Malacanang for almost a year already.

Plaza said she had an interview in Malacanang over these ecozones with pending presidential proclamation that prompted a meeting among officials of the Presidential Management Staff.

According to Plaza, the Office of the President wanted to include land description and they complied with that.

Plaza lamented this as ironic because the President has been going to the world to invite investors.

According to Plaza, these investors have been holding on because the Philippines is a strategic location and they have an advantage with the English-speaking labor force.

PEZA’s concern over delays in the Presidential Proclamation of approved ecozones had already reached the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry that the recent 43rd Philippine Business Conference included it in their resolutions, which were submitted to President Duterte for action.