Nov Peza pledges seen generating more than 5,000 jobs

More than 5,000 new jobs are expected to be created from the 28 new and expansion projects approved by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) earlier in November.

The Peza said these 5,324 new jobs would mainly be in the export sector, as well as in IT (information technology), facilities, logistics, and utilities.

These jobs span 25 projects by registered companies in the economic zones administered by the Peza as well as in three other developer projects.

These projects are expected to bring in P9.127 billion worth of investments and $397.6 million worth of exports.

The investments approved in November brought the total value of the investments approved by Peza from January to date to P140.884 billion, marking a more than twofold increase compared to the same period in 2022.

The additional jobs also brought the expected new jobs generated from all these investments to 33,845, a 1.61-percent increase from the same 11-month period during the previous year.

Earlier this week, Peza Director General Tereso Panga said that they have two more board meetings this year, one on Nov. 30 and another one in December, and that they were looking to approve another P50 billion worth of investment projects.

In 2022, Peza-approved investments reached P140.7 billion, soaring by 103 percent from the P69.30 billion tallied for the full year of 2021.

Its approved investments reached P95.03 billion in 2020, P117.54 billion in 2019, and P140.2 billion in 2018.

The Peza is hoping to achieve a “conservative” 10 percent growth in its investment portfolio this year by approving P154.77 billion worth of new and expansion projects.