Pharma ecozone to rise in Bulacan

A real estate developer will spend more than P570.57 million to put up a new economic zone in Bulacan that will house pharmaceutical companies such as producers of over-the-counter and generic drugs, a top official of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) said.

Philstar Marketing Development Inc. (PMDI) recently signed a registration agreement with Peza to be the developer and operator of the mixed-use economic zone in Malolos, according to a Facebook post by Peza Deputy Director General Tereso Panga on Sunday.

In a Viber message on Monday, Panga said construction of the ecozone would start this year. He said the project, which is called the First Bulacan Business Park (FBBP), would be the first mixed-use ecozone in the province.

Sustainable business

“FBBP is looking at the pharma parks of India, Thailand and Singapore as its model for the Philippines. It will adopt as well smart technologies and renewable source of power inside the ecozone to meet locator companies’ demand for a sustainable business environment,” he said in his post.

He said FBBP was envisioned to be a premier ecozone in the country hosting medical research and development firms, manufacturers of innovative, over-the-counter and generic drug products, producers of medical equipment and a pharmaceutical cold chain.

President Duterte has already proclaimed FBBP as an economic zone, which will cover 259,069 square meters, according to Proclamation No. 1070. But while Panga called the project a “medical R&D and pharma park,” Malacañang’s proclamation called it an “Information Technology Park.”

When asked to clarify this, Panga said they did not change the classification from an IT park “so as not to delay proclamation.” However, he said the company was able to get the proper certification from local government units to classify it as an industrial zone.

Peza, an investment promotion agency that provides tax breaks to ecozone locators, registered around P95.03 billion worth of investment pledges last year, down nearly 20 percent from the P117.5 billion in commitments in 2019.

Although this marked a double-digit decline from 2019, this was still beyond the agency’s initial expectations. In July 2020, Peza Director General Charito Plaza said the agency expected to get only half of what it got in 2019. INQ