Peza keeps P250-B 2025 investment goal
The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) is confident about reaching its investment approval target of at least P250 billion for this year despite the overhang from the US tariff and flood control scandal.
“We’re hopeful … Our conservative [target] is P250 billion, but the ambitious target is P300 billion,” Peza Director General Tereso Panga said on Tuesday.
The investment promotion agency has yet to release the amount of its approved investments from January to October this year. Panga only said Peza had approved around P20 billion more in investments, bringing the total to about P170 billion for the period.
Panga said some of the big-ticket investments were valued at least P1 billion each, although he declined to provide further details.
“With maybe three or four board meetings to go, we’re hopeful that we can realize more investments, register more investments,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the 20th Philippine Semiconductor and Electronics Convention and Exhibition in Pasay City.
From January to September, Peza approved P154.7 billion worth of investments, a 33.5 percent increase from the same period a year ago.
Panga said Peza is yet to feel any backlash from the 19-percent US tariff slapped on Philippine exports and the corruption allegations involving government-funded flood control projects. So far, he noted that the export sector had been able to sustain its uptrend.
“… As we speak, it’s all positive for Peza when it comes to investments, exports and jobs. And investments have been going up; [there’s] upward trajectory, so we don’t feel that yet. Even in exports, we’re still up,” he said.
Panga expressed hope that the United States would retain the tariff exemption on semiconductor exports.
The electronics/semiconductor manufacturing services sector is the country’s largest export earner.
Panga also said that ecozone exporters continued to ship to the United States, their strategic market, despite the 19-percent tariff. The country still had one of the lowest import duties levied by the US government, he noted.
However, he said some producers have scaled down their exports to America due to the “huge drop” in demand for their products, particularly finished electronic products.
The country’s export sales totaled $55.7 billion in the January to August period, up 12.6 percent from the same period a year ago, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed.
Among commodity groups, electronic products topped the list with $29.48 billion, equivalent to 52.9 percent of the total.
