The Philippine Economic Zone Authority expects investment approvals to jump 300 percent this year to P872.7 billion from just P218.2 billion in 2016, after more foreign companies expressed interest to invest in the country.
Peza director-general Charito Plaza said the investment expectation was much faster than the first-quarter investment growth of 51 percent.
“We’re more than quadrupling the growth for four quarters this year. The crisis in the Middle East did not affect the interest of foreign companies to locate in the Philippines,” Plaza told reporters at the sidelines of the 14th Philippine Semiconductor and Electronics Convention and Exhibition 2017 at SMX Convention Center in Pasay City.
Peza assumed the optimistic forecast following a 26-percent drop in investments in 2016 to P218.2 billion from P295 billion in 2015.
Plaza said investors from the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Japan and the United Arab Emirates had started the selection process for investment locations and registered their companies with the incentive-giving body.
Investments approved by Peza in the first quarter jumped 50.5 percent to P51.335 billion from P34.107 billion in the same period last year.
Japan was the biggest source of investments in the first quarter and accounted for 30 percent of the total.
Electronics and semiconductor investments in the first quarter climbed 85.19 percent to P7.64 billion from P4.12 billion in the same period in 2016. Semiconductor exports by Peza locators also increased 11.5 percent to $5.7 billion in the first quarter from $5.1 billion a year ago.
Electronics and semiconductors accounted for 17.7 percent of manufacturing gross value added and 51 percent of total Philippine exports last year.
Direct employment in the sector also increased 2 percent to 349,662 people from 333,849.
Data from Peza showed that of 3,985 companies operating in economic zones, 469 or 1.8 percent were electronics and semiconductor enterprises as of March 2017.
“We are looking for a very bullish year for Peza. We see total exports growing, since 80 percent of the country’s exports comes from Peza,” Plaza said.