46 ecozone applications pile up in Malacañang

A nearly year-long backlog in pending economic zones is still in the Office of the President, leaving a pile of new ecozones worth least P30 billion lacking the required nod to start development, a delay that may push some investors to transfer their investments elsewhere, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) said.

In spite of aggressive efforts to invite investments from abroad to set up shop here, Peza Director General Charito Plaza said that Malacañang had been slow in proclaiming new economic zones to give space for locators, calling it her “frustration.”

According to Peza data provided to media, there are 46 new economic zones currently waiting for presidential approval. Of this, six ecozones were carried over from the previous Aquino administration.

Upon adding the individual project costs in the list, it showed that projects worth at least P30.6 billion are still up in the air. Some of the pending ecozones in the list did not state the project cost.

Thirty-two of the backlog account for information technology parks and centers, which would house IT-Business Process Management (IT-BPM) firms—an industry that has already struggled from slower growth in new investment pledges in the first five months of the year.

The remaining applications are for 11 manufacturing ecozones, a medical tourism center, an agro-industrial ecozone and a tourism ecozone.

Without a presidential proclamation, the development of these new economic zones could not begin, which may be a problem for locators that need the additional space.

“My frustration is that [President Duterte] is so aggressive in inviting investors, that’s why there are always business forums in his state visits. Peza, for example, received the entire investment pledges in the state visit in the Middle East, but the problem of the [investors] is they want to put up their industries already because they are registered with Peza, but they cannot because the proclamation [of the new ecozones] has not yet been released,” she said.

Plaza was referring to the $925 million worth of pledges brought home from Duterte’s state visits to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar last April.

Moreover, the long delay may be a problem especially given that more than half of the growth that Peza has been enjoying in the past five months has been due to the pledges to develop new economic zones.

From January to May, new investments registered under Peza increased 98.14 percent to P107.75 billion from P54.38 billion in the same period last year. Out of the current growth growth figure, P67 billion was attributed to new economic zone development.

“We are telling [the investors] to hold on because their principal offices are asking how many more months do they have to wait. If this wouldn’t be rushed, they are now thinking of transferring to economic zones in other countries,” she said in a mix of English and Filipino.

“We are not the only economic zone [authority] in the world. We are not the only one that give incentives,” she added.