PEZA eyes new income sources

MANILA, Philippines — Investment promotion agency Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) has created a technical working group (TWG) to review present and new income streams in support of revenue efforts of the Department of Finance (DOF).

PEZA director general Charito Plaza said in a statement yesterday the aim of the TWG is “to enhance and discover new income streams and contribute to the DOF more sources of revenues to finance President Duterte’s Build Build Build and other economic agenda.”

The agency sought the DOF’s help in evaluating present and potential sources of revenues in PEZA’s programs, as well as enhanced services rendered by PEZA’s agency partners.

Among the PEZA’s agency partners under DOF are the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Local Government Finance.

Since PEZA was created in 1995, Plaza said the agency continues to contribute high dividends to the government.

In addition, the agency has increased the income and classification of the economic zone host local government units in the CALABARZON region, Baguio City, Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu, Iloilo City and Angeles, Pampanga to reduce poverty and crime incidence in those areas.

To date, there are 404 operating economic zones in the country.

Of these economic zones, 74 are manufacturing economic zones, 286 are information technology parks and centers, 22 are agro-industrial economic zones, 19 are tourism economic zones, and three are medical tourism parks.

As PEZA is looking to contribute to the government’s revenue efforts, Plaza said the agency would also continue with its mandate of attracting investments to create more jobs in the country.

“We remain steadfast in our mandate to generate investments, employment for Filipinos, and export income for our economy,” she said.

As of end-November last year, investments approved by PEZA reached P109.19 billion, down 13 percent from P122.98 billion in the same period in 2018.

Jobs generated from these investments, meanwhile, reached 1.573 million as of October.

For exports, outbound shipments from the country’s economic zones reached $45.340 billion as of October.