The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) eyes the conversion of Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm in Puerto Princesa, Palawan into its first vertically-integrated mega ecozone that would accommodate big-ticket projects.
Tereso Panga, PEZA director-general, said the agency is in talks with the Bureau of Corrections for the use of the 26,000-hectare property housing the prison facility as a public ecozone that would be self-sustaining in terms of power, water and ports.
“We want to see a cluster of industries in an area where the ecosystem can be developed to facilitate the whole supply chain of manufacturing,” Panga said, adding electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing is ideal to locate in the site since Palawan hosts a nickel processing plant, Coral Bay Nickel Corp.
If discussions fall through, the two parties will sign a memorandum of agreement and will proceed to due diligence.
Panga said the project follows previous models in Baguio and in Cebu in creating public ecozones where PEZA will contribute the property as equity.
He said after gaining possession of the property, PEZA will accredit a private sector company to do the masterplanning and development.
PEZA will then manage the ecozone.
“If you look at Asean countries, the trend now is to build mega ecozones. They are able bring in big-ticket, high-value projects because they can offer thousands of hectares,” he said.
PEZA has to find ways to compete in this space since government no longer has public lands for ecozones. PEZA has four at present: Baguio, Cavite, Mactan and Pampanga.
Meanwhile, Panga expressed support to a House-approved legislation that would restore the power of all investment promotion agencies (IPAs) of approving incentives for big-ticket projects.
A priority bill, Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises to Maximize Opportunities for Reinvigorating the Economy or CREATE MORE would eliminate the need for big projects to go through the Fiscal Incentives Review Board (FIRB).
“FIRB will then become the policy -making (body). If we want to attract niche investments or (projects with) emerging technologies, FIRB can come up with incentive package which they will endorse to the IPAs,” Panga said. – Irma Isip
