THE Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) said it tallied P10.8 billion worth of investment commitments, representing proposed expansions by current locators.
In a statement, the investment promotion agency said that its five-day mission to Tokyo obtained commitments from Terumo Corp. (P1 billion), Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd. (P1.6 billion), TDK Corp. (P7.2 billion), and Almex Technologies (P1 billion).
PEZA Director General Tereso O. Panga said the planned expansions reflect strong demand for the companies’ products.
“PEZA will make sure that the country will receive these investments, as we have a small window to get (started with) the manufacturing of new high-tech products in the Philippines given the competitiveness of the industry,” he added.
Taiyo Yuden’s investment plan covers 2023 and 2024. Manufacturing company TDK’s first expansion will run between 2023 and 2026, while a second expansion will start in 2024.
The mission, which returned on Sept. 2, included meetings to pursue investment leads. In one case, PEZA met with Sumitomo Corp. and First Philippines Industrial Park, Inc.
PEZA added that it explored collaboration with Tokyo’s Kiraboshi Bank and the Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, known as SME Support.
“Talks with the SME Support led to the possible inclusion of the Philippines in the conduct of CEO Business Meetings that will allow direct linkage between Japanese SMEs and PEZA-registered business enterprises,” PEZA said.
PEZA said the proposed partnership with SME Support will help Japanese SMEs locators meet their staffing needs.
SME Support Senior Director-General Soma Hirohisa said the organization is “looking forward to the possible partnership with PEZA to produce more success stories for Japanese SMEs, similar to those who set up manufacturing facilities in the ecozones to export these products to Japan and other global markets.”
PEZA said it also entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with NEOJAPAN that will allow it to use the latter’s desknet’s NEO and Appsuite, free of charge until the end of 2023.
“The use of these groupware solutions will allow PEZA to digitize, automate, and centralize most of its internal documents and processes under a secure IT environment,” PEZA said.
The MoU will also help PEZA become the first Philippine government agency to use the NEOJAPAN product as a standard operating office system. — Justine Irish D. Tabile
