Peza investments up 89%

The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) yesterday reported that new investment pledges registered by the agency from January to July went up by 89.43 percent to P132.66 billion partly due to “aggressive marketing” efforts here and abroad.

Peza Director General Charito Plaza said in a press briefing yesterday that investment pledges in the first seven months surged from P70.03 billion registered in the comparative period last year.

The latest investment figures represented the total value of 363 projects that were registered by Peza in the first seven months of the year. Plaza, however, did not provide a sectoral breakdown of these figures.

“I would say it’s because investors are more hopeful under the Duterte administration,” Plaza said when asked to comment on the latest growth figures, noting that the government now was “better” and “more credible.”

“It’s also because of the aggressive marketing of Peza,” she added.

According to Elmer San Pascual, manager of Peza’s promotion and public relations, the new investments so far were made mostly by foreigners mainly coming from Japan, United States and South Korea. Foreign investors accounted for 70 percent of the total pledges while local investors registered the remaining 30 percent.

Prior to this, Peza reported P120 billion worth of investments in the first semester, a 71-percent increase from the same period a year ago.

This was mainly due to pledges in economic zone development, which accounted for more than 60 percent of the total or P75.4 billion, nearly double the P38.64 billion reported in the same period last year.

Likewise, there was also an increase in employment in the first semester, with potential direct jobs reaching 1.36 million, a 6.41 percent increase from the same period last year that had 1.28 million. In terms of exports covering the same 6-month period, Peza reported $25.05 billion, a 12.37 percent increase from the Jan. to June 2016 exports of $22.29 billion.

A copy of the breakdown of investments in the January-to-June period also showed that pledges in the Information Technology-Business Process Outsourcing sector were still falling. From January to June this year, pledges in the IT-BPO industry shrank 33.35 percent to P8.14 billion from P12.22 billion during the same period in 2016.

Commenting on the drop in IT-BPO pledges, Plaza said it was because of the political uncertainty under the Trump administration. “[Since] most of our BPOs and call centers are American companies, they are waiting for a clearer policy of the Trump administration,” she said, citing Trump’s America First policy.