The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) said Tuesday it signed a tripartite agreement with Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC) and Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) to facilitate Japanese investments in the Philippines.
PEZA director-general Tereso Panga said the memorandum of understanding (MOU) is a continuing program of PEZA engaging banking institutions to bring in investments into the Philippines by providing financial assistance, specifically to Japanese companies.
“With SMBC and RCBC, we are obviously looking at Japan being our number one source of investments. We will continue to do that,” Panga said at the sidelines of the MOU signing at the PEZA office Tuesday.
SMBC managing executive director and co-head of SMBC Asia Pacific (APAC) Yuichi Nishimura said the bank would host events in Tokyo to attract investors from Japan.
“I am sure this tripartite MOU will further facilitate our corporate activities to attract additional investors into the Philippines,” he said.
Nishimura underscored potential investments in high-tech industries and those with promising potential like green batteries for electric vehicles (EVs).
He said the Japanese bank is supporting a lot of clients in PEZA, including those that have just set up shop, existing clients with eye on expansion and potential investors who are first-time clients.
Nishimura said that while SMBC is good at providing corporate finance, its partnership with RCBC provided the Japanese bank with fresh insights to focus on new areas such as financial support for PEZA and other economic zone employees.
“We cannot provide these services because we are foreign. We need a trustworthy partner which is the RCBC, going forward to make these services available to PEZA, locators and employees,” he said.
RCBC president and chief executive Eugene Acevedo said the MOU is special to the bank because the Japan desk of RCB has been in existence for 50 years now.
“It’s a great way to celebrate the occasion by actively participating in sourcing new investors from Japan together with our new partners in SMBC,” he said.
He said the local bank is hoping that that by putting in the expertise of three entities in a single platform, Japanese companies would be encouraged and emboldened to prefer the Philippines as a destination for their investments. There are 807 Japanese investors in the Philippines.
