Earnings from ecozones up 15%

Philippine Export Zone Authority (PEZA) Director-General Lilia de Lima said yesterday that dollar earnings from the country’s export processing zones went up by 15 percent in the first 11 months of 2002 compared with the previous year’s level. Speaking before participants of the Servant Leadership Forum at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), De Lima also said that despite the 23-percent drop in investments in the export processing zones, the number of jobs created by the zone was 16.4 percent higher during the 11-month period compared with the previous year.

De Lima did not give absolute figures.

She said that she had given a complete report of PEZA’s performance to Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II.

De Lima said the number of companies that registered with the PEZA in 2002 were almost the same as those that registered in 2001.

"The only difference was that the companies which came in this year were smaller than those that came in 2001," she said.

Most of the new investments, De Lima added, were still in the manufacturing sector, followed by the information technology sector.

The biggest investors during the 11-month period were from Japan, the US, Singapore, Malaysia and Korea.

For this year, De Lima said she is once again optimistic that the PEZA’s performance will be better than last year.

"Last year was difficult, but I hope it will be better this year," she said. – Marianne Go