PEZA reports P140bn investment in 2018 and jobs boost
The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), which oversees economic zones where the majority of the country’s outsourcing firms are located, said it approved a total of P140.24 billion (USD2.69 billion) worth of investments last year. Of the total, investments in the Information Technology sector reached P25.56 billion, a 32.2% increase from the previous year. A total of 188 IT projects were registered with PEZA last year. Overall, however, PEZA said investment pledges declined by 40.97% from 2017, which saw total approved pledges of P237.57 billion. Despite the big decline in investment pledges, however, approvals by PEZA did create more local jobs than before, the agency said. The number of new jobs created rose 8.05% to 733,479 in 2018 from its previous count of 678,799 jobs for 2017.
