Investments registered with the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) rose 115 percent to P14.35 billion in the second quarter of 2022 from P6.7 billion in the same period in 2021.
Tereso Panga, PEZA officer-in-charge and deputy director general, said the PEZA Board approved a total of 61 new and expansion projects for the period April to June 2022.
Of this number, 16 are for information technology (IT), 15 for export/manufacturing, 13 for facilities, 13 for ecozone development, two for IT facilities and logistics, respectively.
Panga said these projects are expected to generate employment of 11,186, which is 29 percent higher than the 8,667 jobs generated by the projects approved in the second quarter of 2021.
However, while there was an increase in investments and employment, exports of zone locators in the second quarter dropped 6.3 percent to $514.64 million over last year’s $549.22 million projected exports.
For the January to June period of 2022, PEZA approved 90 new and expansion projects which are expected to bring in P22.49 billion of investments, $747.09 million exports, and 14,354 jobs.
Japan remains PEZA’s top country investor in the first half with P8 billion in investments followed by Singapore with P2.17 billion.
Region IV attracted the highest number of investments of P10.499 billion.
