An overwhelming 114 percent of investment increase was earned by Philippine Economic Zone Authority in the second quarter of the year, following the approval of 61 new and expansion projects for the period of April to June 2022.
In his report, PEZA officer-in-charge and deputy director general for policy and planning, Tereso Panga, said total investments are expected to bring in a total of P14.347 billion of investments, 114.93 percent higher than the P6.675 Billion approved investments for the second quarter of 2021.
Of the 61 approved new and expansion projects, 16 are for Information Technology, 15 for export/manufacturing, 13 for facilities, 13 for ecozone development, and two for IT Facilities and Logistics respectively.
Meanwhile, the expected jobs to be created by the projects totaled 11,186, which is 29.06 percent higher as compared to the 8,667 projected jobs in the 2nd quarter of 2021.
However, while there was an increase in investments and employment, there was a total of $514.639 million in exports projected in Q2 2022, which is a 6.30 percent decline as compared to last year’s $549.219 million projected exports.
Approved projects
On the other hand, for the January to June period of 2022, a total of 90 new and expansion projects have been approved and are expected to bring in P22.488 billion of investments, $747.093 million in exports and 14,354 jobs.
Japan remains PEZA’s top country investor in the first half with P8.007 billion in investments followed by Singapore with P2.169 billion.
Meanwhile, the top-performing region where investments are located remains in Region IV with P10.399 billion, while the top-improving regions are: Region VIII, Region X, Region XII and Region XIII.
Comparing the first semesters of the last year 2021 and the present covering January to June, a decrease of 29.85 percent has been reported in the total approved investments from P32.057 billion in the said period to the present figure of P22.488 billion.