Peza Director General Tereso Panga. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
MANILA -The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) has approved investments amounting to P20.56 billion in April, soaring by 162.37 percent from the past year and marking a strong second-quarter start for the government’s investment promotion agency.
The new investments cleared by Peza during the month dwarfed the P12.53-billion total investment approvals in the first quarter of this year.
The Peza said on Thursday that its board green-lighted 14 new and expansion projects, which would be located in Baguio, Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Cebu and South Cotabato.
The 14 projects bring Peza’s approved investments for the first four months of the year to P33.094 billion, which is 107.15 percent higher compared with the level in the same period in 2022.
“We believe that we are now reaping the results of the ongoing investment missions of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his administration’s investment initiatives, and it is now up to us to follow through on the pledges,” Peza Director General Tereso Panga said in a statement.
Favored sectors
“We remain positive that more investments will come to the Philippines with the big-ticket investments that we secured during the President’s visits to Japan, US and Switzerland, among others,” he added.
The investment promotion agency said seven of these new investments would go to the logistics service enterprise sector. Four will be in export manufacturing while the remaining three will be in IT (information technology) enterprises.
The Peza said that the biggest project prequalified by its board would be in the manufacturing of biomass fuel products made from buyo-buyo or piper aduncum shrub, with an investment value of P19.701 billion.
This new round of investments is also expected to create 2,233 new jobs, according to the Peza.
During the four-month period, the cumulative investments were estimated to create $1.01 billion worth of exports, as well as 7,469 new jobs.
Earlier this year, Panga said they were looking to grow Peza’s investment approvals by at least 10 percent this year.
The Peza approved P140.7 billion worth of investments in 2022, growing by 103 percent from the P69.3 billion tallied for the full year of 2021.
Approved investments reached P140.2 billion in 2018, P117.54 billion in 2019, P95.03 billion in 2020 and P69.30 billion in 2021.
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