Pasay City – The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) Director General Charito “Ching” Plaza on Friday has reiterated that it’s best to focus on the overall performance of the agency and not just making projections, forecasts or targets especially during this time of uncertainties brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Rather than make promises and projections about investment to generate especially now that we are in this global pandemic, it is more crucial to work hard to keep our investors in the country and even encourage them to expand. This will in turn help attract new investors to the country,” said PEZA Chief.
The PEZA management continues to execute its mandate to attract investments, generate exports, and create employment even with the present conditions in the country, with the pending approval of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Bill in the Congress, and around the world.
Plaza said, “Best aggressive PEZA target is to attain three digits, more than a hundred billion against last year’s P95 billion, but we don’t want to be promising high figures. Instead, we must work hard and build support and partnerships from public and private stakeholders to bring in new investors, keep existing investors and for them to expand not transfer.”
In 2020, PEZA recorded a total of PhP 95 Billion of investments with 326 projects registered. Foreign investments were up in 2020 by 21.26% to PhP 59.73 Billion from 2019’s PhP 49.26 Billion.
In terms of sector, the manufacturing industry has generated a total of PhP 34.44 Billion of investments, which is 13.43% up from the sector’s PhP 30.35 Billion investment in 2019.
The IT-BPO industry, on the other hand, is seen to bring in PhP 17.41 Billion of investments. This is 0.93% lower than the PhP 17.58 Billion investments recorded in 2019.
Likewise, PEZA has implemented ‘balancing acts’ to assist and support its locator companies continuing operations during this time while taking care of the health and safety of the Filipino workforce.
For the period of January 04-08, 2021, PEZA has reported that 2,608 registered companies have continued operating with 1,116,830 employees working under various work arrangements. Meanwhile, the IT-BPO and manufacturing sectors are operating at 84% and 88% respectively.
The PEZA Chief reiterated “PEZA’s performance are realistic and not based on promises and projections especially that we’re in this pandemic period.”
PEZA performance lauded
To prove, PEZA banks on its best practices and performance during the pandemic, which was lauded by both local and international organizations.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported coming the end of 2020 that “Only PEZA [among other IPAs] registered year-on-year growth in foreign investment commitments during the July-to-September period with P20.3 billion, up 97 percent from P10.3 billion last year.”
Meanwhile, the US Department of State noted that “while the Philippine bureaucracy can be slow and opaque in its processes, the business environment is notably better within the special economic zones, particularly those available for export businesses operated by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), known for its regulatory transparency, no red-tape policy, and one-stop shop services for investors.”
Global Biz
In a bid to continue enticing foreign investors to come and invest to the Philippines, PEZA has organized the ‘Global Biz,’ a monthly investors’ forum where export investors, industry associations, foreign chambers, investment promotion partners or Ka-PIPPs, ecozone developers and operators, LGUs, business people, professional cooperatives, national agencies, economists, and lawmakers meet to discuss business and investment opportunities in PEZA’s ecozones.
Different topics about economic zone development and addressing efficiency factors will be discussed per month and will target different foreign countries and industry sectors.
“The Global Biz is one of our promotional and marketing strategies which we will use aggressively to continue attracting investors to the Philippines,” said Plaza.
The PEZA Chief added “we remain committed and steadfast in performing our mandate despite the difficulties and hope that coming 2021, we will be able to attract more foreign direct investments in the country, keep the PEZA brand of service renowned worldwide, and help the Philippine economy bounce back and even become a self-reliant, self-sustaining, and resource-generating investment haven in Asia.” #