Investments registered with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) fell 27 percent in 2021 but the agency is confident of hitting a 6-percent growth in commitments this year.
In a report, PEZA said it registered P69.3 billion projects last year from P95 billion in 2020.
Exports of existing locators stood at $63 billion in 2021, up 14 percent from $55 billion in 2020.
To date, ecozone locators have 1.78 million workers, an increment of 217,700 or 14 percent from 1.56 million workers in 2020
The 249 projects registered in 2021 will generate annual export sales of $2.14 billion once fully operational.
Charito Plaza, PEZA director-general, attributed the decline in investments to the effects of the Delta and Omicron variants and the Super Typhoon Odette in December.
Manufacturing led all projects at P25.51 billion while information technology followed at P7.32 billion.
Japan remains the top country investor at 21.72 percent of total. The top-performing region was Region 4 with P25.263 billion of investments.
For January, PEZA approved 9 new and expansion projects valued at P3.48 billion with estimated annual export sales of $56.09 million. – Irma Isip
