Investments registered with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) jumped 89% in January-May period to P74 billion versus P39 billion in the same period last year.
PEZA Director-General Lilia B. De Lima said at the opening of the 10th Philippine Semiconductor and Electronics Convention and Exhibition 2013 that the agency’s newly generated investments point to another government economic achievement.
De Lima said the huge growth in investments is an indication that investors have finally gone back to the Philippines. Historically, majority of PEZA locators are engaged in electronics manufacturing.
Export-oriented enterprises flock to PEZA economic zones because the agency offers better incentives than other investment promotion agencies. PEZA locators are entitled to income tax holidays or a choice of 5 percent tax on gross income. They are also allowed to import duty-free capital equipment. PEZA has also a high project realization rate of over 90 percent.
In April this year, PEZA has reported accumulated investments of P2.359 trillion over the past 18 years, 33 percent of which came in the first two and half years of the Aquino administration. PEZA has a total of 2,950 investors, which are all export-oriented.
In terms of exports, PEZA exports reached $482.404 billion for the period 1995 to February this year. PEZA exports account for 76 percent of the country’s total exports.
PEZA enterprises also employ a total of 912,047 Filipinos, but De Lima said that if the indirect employment is included, a total of 4.5 million jobs have been generated by PEZA investors.
PEZA also religiously pays taxes to the national government, including the 32 percent regular corporate income tax.
“This means that while we can give tax incentives, PEZA itself get no tax incentives at all,” De Lima said earlier noting that after 18 years, PEZA has remitted a total of P13.909 billion representing taxes, 50 percent dividendsto the national government and payments of previous PEZA loans.
PEZA has also streamlined its bureaucracy from the original 1,006 personnel to only 494 strong, lean but efficient highly-motivated service-oriented workforce servicing 2,950 companies in 281 ecozones located all over the country.
From registering just export-oriented manufacturing companies, PEZA has gone into the IT sector, tourism and medical tourism, and agro-industrial ecozones.

Source: Manila Bulletin - June 6, 2013