THE Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) has already exceeded its full-year goal of generating P100 billion in fresh investments in 2007 as it approved P109 billion worth of new projects after the first three quarters of the year.

Peza director general Lilia de Lima, in a report to Trade Secretary Peter B. Favila, said on a year-to-date basis the investments generated by the agency increased by 88 percent compared with the January-to-September 2006 haul.

“I hope that this will continue up to the end of the year, as there are more big investments that are in the pipeline,” de Lima said.

She, however, said Peza will no longer revise the 20-percent growth in investments that they initially set.

Most of the new approved investments, she said, are expansion programs of the companies already located in Peza sites.

This is led by the expansion of Dallas-based chip maker Texas Instruments in Clark, Pampanga.

She said with the recent trip of President Arroyo in the US, China and India, the strong upward trend in the entry of investments is expected to continue up to next year as these countries are among the top trading partners of the Philippines.

Of the approved P109-billion fresh investments, de Lima said about 98 percent of them are expected to come into fruition.

She did not say yet how many new jobs that these investments will be generating.

In terms of actual export revenues generated by the locators of Peza-accredited zones, de Lima said Peza recorded an increase of 16 percent from January to August compared with the same period last year.

The January-to-August 2007 fresh employment generated, meanwhile, rose by 4 percent compared with the same period last year.

ALIGNED with its thrust of expanding its business and operations outside of Thailand, PTT Philippines Corp. (PTTPC) has offered to the Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC) to come up with a feasibility study on developing a gas pipeline from Batangas to Manila (BatMan-1) and Bataan to Manila (BatMan-2).

THE Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) has already exceeded its full-year goal of generating P100 billion in fresh investments in 2007 as it approved P109 billion worth of new projects after the first three quarters of the year.

THE National Development Co. (NDC) will float P4.6 billion worth of bonds on behalf of the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) to partly finance the construction of the North Extension Project worth P6.27 billion.

THE Philippines has imposed a temporary ban on the entry of chicken products, as well as domestic and wild birds and other poultry products from Saskatchewan, Canada, following reports of an avian influenza (AI) outbreak there.

IF you can’t lick them, crack them.

Honda Philippines Inc. (HPI), in coordination with its principal Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (HMC), destroyed on Wednesday 22 fake Honda general-purpose engines at the De La Salle University, Bacolod premises, in place of a motion to withdraw seized articles for destruction it filed before the Regional Trial Court of Bacolod City in June.

DAVAO CITY—Local chief executives in Mindanao will meet their counterparts in the four-nation East Asean Growth Area (Eaga)  to formalize their role in the subregional grouping and to ask their chief ministers or presidents to allow them to forge direct-trade arrangements.

THE world will celebrate World Standards Day on October 14, but the country observed it much earlier as the 33rd National Standards Week was celebrated from October 8  to 14.