The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) will for the first time embark on an investment mission to India as part of its diversification strategy in terms of sources of investments and export destination of its ecozones.
Tereso Panga, PEZA director-general, said the agency is targeting foreign direct investment leads from leading Indian companies into pharmaceutical such as drug manufacturing, pharma zone development, research and development as well as information technology frontier technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain and fintech.
“This will complement our efforts to attract more investments and trade from India as part of our government’s global supply chain de-risking strategy,” Panga said.
PEZA is pursuing new types of ecozones such as pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturing ecozones, E-tech hubs, and knowledge, innovation, science and technology (KIST) parks to promote innovation and niche technologies.
“All of these, on top of our recent push to engage local business titans into the ecozone program, give PEZA a positive outlook for the remainder of 2024,” said Panga.
Despite the decline in investment registrations in the first half of 2024, PEZA remains hopeful it will achieve its goal of generating P200 billion to P250 billion worth of projects this year as it is poised to facilitate big- ticket projects of prospective investors, both local and foreign.