PEZA gets P3.8 B worth of investment pledges in February

The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) has approved 12 projects with investment commitments amounting to a total of P3.8 billion for this month.

PEZA officer-in-charge Tereso Panga said the investment promotion agency’s board approved the new and expansion projects during its board meeting last Feb. 23.

He said the investments expected from the recently approved projects were 112 percent higher than the P1.792 billion cleared by PEZA in the same month last year.

Among the approved projects, he said five are for export manufacturing, three for facilities, one on information technology (IT), one on logistics, one for utilities, and one for the expansion of a manufacturing ecozone.

“These projects will be located in Taguig City, Laguna, Batangas, Tarlac and Palawan,” he said.

Last January, PEZA approved 19 projects that are expected to bring in P6.39 billion worth of investments.

Panga said PEZA is targeting a 10 percent growth in approved investments for this year.

Last year, the PEZA approved P140.7 billion worth of investments, up 103 percent from 2021.

Panga also said PEZA has endorsed to the Office of the President a total of 21 ecozone development projects pending proclamation this year.

“Once proclaimed, these projects will bring in P21.21 billion worth of investments,” Panga said.

He said PEZA is stepping up its investment promotion efforts to attract strategic and big-ticket investments in the country.

PEZA is expecting more projects this year as a result of investment missions in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Switzerland, Mongolia, the US and other upcoming trips.

“Moving forward, we have initially identified seven priority sectors as our blueprint to attract investments in the Philippines,” Panga said.

He said these sectors are manufacturing; extractives (green ores); agriculture and blue industries; IT services; eco-industrial park development; science, technology and innovation, and integration of small and medium enterprises into the ecozone value chain.

“Moreover, PEZA is lobbying for the revisit of the CREATE (Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises) Act and the amendment of the 28-year-old PEZA Law to better adapt to the changes in the market and the current movement of the country’s investment and business climate,” he said.