PEZA eyes to beat P300 billion investment target this year

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) expects to surpass its P300-billion investment approvals target for the year, citing a robust pipeline.

Sustained investor momentum may also position PEZA to achieve this year’s ambitious target of exceeding its all-time high investment approvals of P312 billion.

PEZA director general Tereso Panga told reporters that the investment promotion agency may exceed its goal to approve P300 billion worth of investments this year.

He said that the agency’s year-to-date investment approvals are expected to reach P261 billion after its Sept. 23 board meeting, when investments would be approved. 

At P261 billion, he said that PEZA would just need around P40 billion worth of investments to beat the P300-billion target.

From January to August, investments approved by PEZA surged by 105 percent to P216.47 billion from P105.83 billion in the same period last year.

Panga said that PEZA may even exceed the P312 billion record-high investment approvals achieved back in 2012. 

“That’s the ambitious target,” Panga said.

The PEZA’s optimistic outlook is driven by its strong investment pipeline, particularly for manufacturing. 

“These are in the pipeline already. And we’re getting a lot of heightened interest, because this time, not only are investors coming from China, there’s also from Taiwan. We see also some movements, companies also putting up redundancies in the Philippines out of Vietnam,” Panga said. 

He said that PEZA is also seeing strong investor interest from Japanese firms. 

“Japanese investments are bouncing back because we observed last year, they did not do well. But this year, we’re getting better,” he said. 

He said the interest from Japanese investors in the country is partly being driven by the development of the Luzon Economic Corridor, which is being supported by Japan as one of the pioneer economies. 

He said that overall investor interest in the country is being driven by the government’s investment-promotion efforts.