Rise of planned investments in economic zones slows down

INVESTMENTS planned in economic zones continued to grow last month, but at about half the pace recorded as of July, data released by a government agency yesterday showed.

Investments pledged to the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) amounted to P70.958 billion as of end-August, up 31.17% from the same period last year.

But this growth was slower than the 58% surge in such commitments that were registered in January-July, which in turn had already decelerated from the increase recorded in first half.

PEZA expects such growth to settle to a modest 15% by yearend.

But it will have to lure nearly twice the existing figure in the remaining four months of the year to hit the P201.67-billion target by December.

The eight-month tally consisted of 332 projects involving manufacturing, information technology services and general economic zone development.

These are estimated to yield $5.194 billion in export sales a year and generate 58,260 new jobs once the projects come on stream. Projected new jobs from the approved investment pledges will be 11.14% more than the 52,421 new positions that were expected in the same period last year.

Workers in economic zone locators totaled nearly 70,000 at the end of the first half, up by roughly a fifth from year-ago levels, earlier reports said.

In that period, export sales rose 39.5% to $20.082 billion from the January-June 2009 amount. — JADH, Businessworld