Economic zones seen adding 80,000 jobs this year

The Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) targets to add 60,000 to 80,000 jobs this year within its ecozones across the country.

In an interview with Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon Thursday, PEZA Director General Tereso Panga said the investment promotion agency (IPA) currently has additional 35,871 jobs in ecozones nationwide from January to September this year.

Recent addition to job generation are the 4,000 fresh positions to be opened from 16 newly approved projects on Sept. 23.

“So, our ecozone development is pretty much scattered to rural areas and new growth areas although most of it is still in Calabarzon —we have 11 projects there. But we can see that we have two in Cebu, there are also in NCR (National Capital Region) and we have [in] Pampanga in Central Luzon,” Panga said.

Panga remains optimistic that the IPA will hit its PHP200-billion investment approvals for the full year of 2024.

As of last month, PEZA approved a total of PHP115.89 billion worth of projects.

These projects will boost Philippine exports by another USD2.51 billion.

“Towards end of the quarter, historically, we can expect a surge in investments. We’re still bullish that we’ll be able to achieve our PHP200-billion target for the year,” Panga said.