Ecozone exports up 122%

Exports from economic zones ballooned by 122 percent during the first quarter of the year from $3.326 billion in 1999 to $7.904 billion this year.

Data from the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) indicated that the bulk of the exports came from private economic zones, amounting to $5.904 billion compared to exports that came from public economic zones which amounted to $1.482 billion.

PEZA records showed that the Ayala-owned Laguna Technopark led the special ecozones, exporting a total of $4.076 billion during the period.

Among Laguna Technopark's top locators are Amkor Anam which operates a complete assembly and reliability testing facility for electronics. It also has an advanced packing development center for its over 150 semiconductor customers worldwide.

Laguna Technopark also houses Toshiba Corp., one of the country's consistent top exporters that manufactures CD-ROM drives, personal computer motherboards and DVD-ROM drives. Its Laguna facility also manufactures and disk drives, optical disk drives and PCBs that incorporate the main computer processors and other key devices.

The second biggest exporter among the special ecozones was Baguio City Economic Zone which reported $557.55 million worth of exports, mainly from its biggest locator, Texas Instruments.

In third place was Camelray Industrial Park which reported $476.156- million worth of exports, followed by Cavite Economic Zone with $420.43 million and Gateway Business Park with $384.86 million.

Of the top five ecozones, however, only the Baguio and Cavite ecozones are government-owned.

Last year, PEZA was the worst performer in terms of new investments which dropped from P30.384 billion to only P3.879 billion during the first half of 1999.

The Department of Trade and Industry admitted that the reported pullout of a number of multinational corporations (MNCs) had been a major cause of concern although the BOI stressed that the nine MNCs in the country at present "are not leaving but merely realigning their operations in response to evolving market demands of the globalized economy."