PEZA eyes MCC, WB funding assistance

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) is seeking to secure funding assistance from a US-led agency and an international financial institution for its planned development and expansion of new economic zones across the country.

PEZA plans to secure a portion of a potential second funding grant from the Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC), while also eyeing a possible financial assistance from the World Bank.

“For MCC, we will ask for assistance for our projects, like we will come up with a masterplan and design of the different economic zones that we will be building in every province and every city,” PEZA director general Charito Plaza said.

Aside from economic zone development, PEZA is also seeking the MCC’s technical assistance for development of ports, logistic hubs and facilities, as well as training programs for workers and small and medium enterprises.

“They provided us the information on how we can avail of financial support through grants and aids because their project is geared towards poverty alleviation and economic development which are among the purpose of the economic zones. It will improve the economy and alleviate poverty,” Plaza said.

“Hopefully, this will form part of the second tranche. We will be submitting our request soon,” she added.

The first compact approved and provided by the MCC to the Philippines in 2010 amounted to $434 million and covered three major projects.

A grant package of almost the same amount is expected for the second compact in which PEZA’s economic zone project proposals could be part of.

The Philippines in December 2015 was re-selected by the MCC board to be eligible for a second compact.

The MCC in December last year, however, said it deferred a vote on the re-selection of the country for another compact grant over “concerns around rule of law and civil liberties” under President Duterte.

“Other than MCC, World Bank is also inviting us to avail of their programs for economic zone development and infrastructure within the ecozones,” Plaza said.

PEZA is planning to embark on an aggressive expansion of public economic zones across the country in which some will be offered “rent-free” to entice more foreign companies to set up shop in the Philippines.

The agency is looking at building two new public economic zones per region, or a total of 36 across the country.

Public economic zones refer to economic zones owned and operated by PEZA.