Investment pledges approved by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority jumped 103 percent this year to P140.7 billion from P69.31 billion in 2021 following the approval of more than a dozen major projects in December.
“Despite the 29.85-percent decline in the first semester of the year 2022 compared to the first semester of 2021, we never lost hope that we would recover. With the big-ticket investments that were prequalified by the board for endorsement to the [Fiscal Incentives Review Board], we were able to record a positive increase in investments in 2022,” said acting PEZA director-general Tereso Panga.
The leading investments promotions agency said it had approved 198 projects since January this year.
Actual employment and exports at economic zones under PEZA reached 1,850,842 direct jobs and about $54.23 billion in exports as of October 2022.
The agency said this year’s investment pledges exceeded the previous peak of P140.2 billion in 2018. The PEZA board approved on Dec.15 some 13 big ticket projects that contributed over P83 billion investments.
Among the new batch of approvals were three new ecozone developments, four export manufacturing enterprises and six IT service enterprises.
PEZA said the investments commitment came mostly from Japan, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, India, South Korea, China, the British Virgin Islands and Taiwan.
“With the increasing GDP growth rate of the Philippines, we can expect more foreign direct investmentsto register with PEZA,” said Panga.
“What is important is we keep building and sustaining the confidence of investors and the country’s competitiveness in investment promotions and facilitations. Indeed, the economic and political climate are improving under the PBBM administration and we hope to sustain very good performance as we prepare for the upturn in the economy and our transition to upper-middle income status,” he said.
Panga underscored the importance of economic zones in the country’s revenue generation and industrialization program.
“We cannot register productivity-enhancing investments if we do not have the ecosystems to provide our investors so that they can be viable with their operations in the Philippines. At this time of crisis, ecozones can be shields to soften the landing of the headwinds, the external headwinds and all these global disruptions happening. The other side to this is that ecozones can be economic drivers. We are in that unique opportunity to contribute to countryside development and accelerate our economic growth,” he said.
PEZA recently endorsed 16 new economic zone developments for proclamation by the President with combined investments of P18 billion.
The Philippines now has 419 economic zones, including 415 private-owned and four government-managed zones.