The number of investments approved by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) in 2013 went up by 16.6 percent to 673 projects from 577 in 2012 while employment generation jumped 14.84 percent despite an 11.48 percent slump in the value of these investments, which are measured in terms of their project cost.
PEZA Director-General Lilia B. De Lima told reporters on the sidelines of the 65th Management Association of the Philippines Inaugural Meeting and Induction of 2014 MAP Board of Governors in Fairmont Hotel in Makati that the agency is targeting at least 10 percent growth in investments this year to make up for the decline in 2013.
“We are going to recover this year what we’ve lost in investments value last year,” De Lima told reporters.
Total investments approved by PEZA in 2013 reached P276.126 billion or 11.48 percent lower from P311.949 billion in 2012.
The decline in investments could be largely attributed to the impact on the removal of incentives in certain sectors like IT parks development and the transfer in the registration of tourism development projects to the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA). Incentives to energy projects were also removed although PEZA does not normally get projects of this kind.
“The removal of incentives only reduced the universe where we can give incentives to investors, but despite this we registered more projects last year or 100 projects more than 2012,” she said noting these projects are into manufacturing and agri-industrial sectors.
Despite such a disincentive, De Lima said they still continue to attract more export-oriented projects totaling 673 or 16.64 percent higher than the 2012 approved projects of 577.
In addition, the projects approved are expected to generate more employment opportunities once they are in full commercial operation. The 673 approved projects have employment generation commitment of 1.048,351 direct jobs or 14.84 percent higher than the 2012 direct employment of 912,047.
Another positive indicator is that exports from PEZA registered enterprises also improved by 7.11 percent to $42.872 billion versus $40.023 billion worth of exports in 2012.
According to De Lima, Japanese and Americans comprised the bulk of approved investments last year.
This year, De Lima expects to continue generating investments from Japan, Korea and Taiwan but said that Europe will improve its investments this year.

Source: Manila Bulletin - January 29, 2014