Moving BPOs to BOI is ‘misleading’ — PEZA

The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) called the proposal to let Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms transfer to the Board of Investments (BOI) misleading.
PEZA Director-General Charito Plaza explained that the move will not be necessary as under the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE) Law, all Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs) have the same incentives to offer to investors and locators.
Plaza said that this proposal is just an attempt to pit IPAs with each other and lure locators to transfer from one to the other.
“We must give the freedom to choose which IPA investors would want to register and be factual of the benefits of considerations of registering to a specific IPA,” she added.
The PEZA chief emphasized that their agency is the top nationwide IPA in the country as it offers many advantages for registered business enterprises (RBEs) located inside the special economic zones.
Particularly, she said, PEZA’s ease of doing business (EODB) provides a one-stop-shop and a non-stop shop, exempting investors from local government units (LGU) and other agencies’ permits.
This statement comes as Albay Representative Joey Sarte Salceda called for the transfer of BPOs from PEZA to BOI to solve the work-from-home debate in the country.