MANILA — The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) has approved a total of PHP29.49 billion worth of investment pledges in the first four months of 2019, data from the investment promotion agency showed.
Although investment approvals for January to April 2019 is lower by 24.5 percent from PHP39.08 billion approvals in the same period last year, job creation in economic zones grew 7.36 percent to 1.48 million this year from 1.38 million in 2018.
Projects that sought PEZA registration for the first four months of the year slipped by 1.24 percent to 159 from 161 projects in the same period last year.
Export revenues of PEZA-registered firms were slightly up from January to March 2019 to USD12.95 billion from USD12.87 billion in the first quarter of 2018.
Meanwhile, investment pledges in the information technology (IT) sector remained slow as it posted a 7.1-percent decrement in January to April 2019 period.
PEZA approved a total of 50 IT projects in the said period worth PHP4.63 billion from PHP4.99 billion investments of 52 registered IT projects in 2018.
“We just could not convince yet a number of PEZA export manufacturing and IT companies who have withheld their expansions to proceed with their expansion, assuring them that there is a good chance for us to have a grandfather rule included in the TRABAHO Bill,” PEZA spokesperson Elmer San Pascual said. (PNA)
