The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) sees investments in Peza-registered enterprises to double or even more than triple in 2017.
This, after new investments rose 51 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2017.
“We’re expecting 200 percent to 300 percent new investments for the year because we already grew 51 percent in the first quarter alone,” Peza Director General Charito B. Plaza told journalists at the sidelines of the three-day 14th Philippine Semiconductor and Electronics Convention and Exhibition (PSECE) that started on Wednesday at the SMX Convention Center in Pasay City.
In the first three months of the year, Peza registered P7.640 billion worth of approved semiconductor and electronics investments, up by 85.19 percent from year-ago’s P4.125 billion she said.
Plaza said semiconductor and electronics exports in Peza in the first quarter of the year rose 11.50 percent, from $5.109 billion in the first three months of 2016 to $5.697 billion.
During the same period, Peza’s direct employment for the electronics and semiconductor industry went up 2.4 percent, from 333,849 last year to 340,662 in end-March this year.
Plaza noted that of the total 3,985 operating enterprises in Peza as of March this year, 469, or 11.8 percent, are electronics and semiconductor enterprises.
She is optimistic on the full-year performance because of the opening of new economic zones and inflows of new investments.
“Those foreign investors that we had an LOI [letter of intent] in the Middle East, in the US and in Japan, one-by-one or by group, they are now coming over,” she said.
The Peza chief added investors from these countries have started to check out the various economic zones in the Philippines and have started to register their businesses with Peza.
She said even investors from Qatar remain bullish on investing in the Philippines. “The Middle East crisis did not affect investors’ interest [in the Philippines],” Plaza said.
Peza has conducted an inventory of all public lands and islands “because we want these idle lands to become economic zones,” she said.
“So we are encouraging, inspiring [and] motivating all the private landowners and the government agencies [and] the LGUs [local government units] that they come up with their own economic zone that we will help to develop and market to the whole world,” she added.
According to the Peza web site, the agency currently oversees 73 manufacturing economic zones, 243 information-technology parks/centers, 21 agro-industrial economic zones 19 tourism economic zones and two medical tourism parks/centers.