Peza Director General Tereso Panga said: “This brings Peza’s total approved investments for the January-May period to P48.027 billion, which is 153.74 percent higher as compared to the P18.928 billion in the same period in 2022.”
Among the 20 projects approved by the Board on May 26, 11 are into export manufacturing, seven are into IT, one facility, and one ecozone development.
These projects will be located in Makati, Pasig, Taguig, Baguio, Pampanga, Cavite, Batangas, Laguna, Cebu, Iloilo, and South Cotabato.
The biggest project pre-qualified by the Peza Board for Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB) approval is engaged in the manufacturing of solar wafer cells with Maxeon 7 technology to be located in Sto. Tomas, Batangas, with investments worth P11.633 billion.
These projects are also expected to generate about US$ 293.55 million exports and create 4,480 direct jobs.
“We are continuously seeing an uptrend with our investment approvals as we enter the first half of the year, and we are more aggressive in our initiatives to help our investors make the Philippines their smart investment choice, taking the cue from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who has been most active in promoting the Philippines in his outbound missions,” said Panga.
Adapting a whole-of-government approach, Peza is constantly partnering with government agencies and various industry associations to address the pain points that hinder investors to unlock the untapped potentials of the Philippines.
Peza met with Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Garcia, and National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan to discuss the concerns of its investors and present its initiatives in support of the investment attraction and facilitation strategy of the government to bring in the much-needed FDIs to the country.
Peza also discussed with Senator Loren Legarda for creation of more ecozones in Antique and other provinces nationwide to spur countryside development.
“We also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to ramp up digitalization in government to ensure fast and efficient delivery of services to the public and to carry out Trade Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual’s directive to adopt digital transformation to boost the country’s competitiveness as investment destination particularly for high-tech and innovator accelerator companies,” said Panga.
To further these efforts, Peza is also engaging with some of its growth champions in government, partner investment promotion agencies, and foreign chambers in strengthening the ecozone development program to be able to attract strategic and big-ticket investments in the country.
It continues to serve as a testament to government’s successful investment and export-led growth strategy, said Panga.
Out of the total 3,431 registered business enterprises (excluding multi-sites), 98 percent are export-oriented, and only two percent are domestic-oriented (into manufacturing). In terms of sales ratio, 94 percent are export sales while six percent are local sales.
As efficiency-seeking investors that compete in the global export market, Peza locators account for 82 percent of the country’s total annual commodity exports and 60 percent of services exports.
With this, Panga assured “to continuously perform our mandate to the best of our ability and help the administration in achieving its bid for the country to graduate to upper-middle income status within the term of President Marcos.” (PR)