PASAY CITY -- Building momentum for more investments in the country this 2022, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the ASEAN-Japan Centre (AJC) last Monday, 31 January, with aims to build synergy towards accelerating investment flows, vitalize tourism partnership, and expand people-to-people exchanges between Philippines, as an ASEAN-member country, and Japan.
Under the said MOU, both parties shall mutually promote trade and investment through collaboration on information exchange, seminars or webinars, roundtable discussions, business meetings and other similar activities.
According to PEZA Director General Charito ‘Ching’ Plaza, “This partnership is in line with PEZA’s initiatives to strengthen the promotion of investments in the Philippines while at the same time bolstering its trade and economic partnership with Japan and the other ASEAN countries.”
“Clearly, our MOU will allow us to better cope with the demands of our stakeholders by providing them with the necessary resources that would enable them to make timely and [wise] investment decisions,” noted AJC Secretary General Dr. Kunihiko Hirabayashi.
Creating synergies
As the country continue to cope with the new normal brought by the pandemic, Director General Plaza explained that PEZA constantly evolves with the changing times and create various opportunities to continue attracting investors in the Philippines.
“This partnership is vital as we continue to encourage existing enterprises to expand their businesses and further explore investment opportunities in our country,” said Plaza.
Likewise, the PEZA Chief noted that the partnership is in line with PEZA’s Transformation Road Map which seeks to fully industrialize the country by addressing the efficiency factors our investors are considering in making their investment decisions.
“In line with PEZA’s Transformation Road Map, we aim partner with various agencies like AJC to create a pool of experts and specialists on investment promotions and ecozone development to assist the public and private sector and the LGUs in putting up ecozones and to address the skills needed by our registered companies.”
For his part, Secretary General Hirabayashi said that AJC hopes to be able to facilitate the flow of impacting investment to Japan to ASEAN, particularly those that create livelihood for marginalized sectors of society, including women and the disabled, and a sustainable project that generally improve the lives of the people.
“I’m certain that AJC’s partnership with PEZA will create a synergy that will carry us through this new phase of economic development,” noted Secretary General Hirabayashi.
Japan remains the biggest investors in PEZA at 27.08%. To date, there are 962 Japanese companies registered with PEZA contributing PhP 727.679 billion of investments, $11.065 billion USD in exports, and 353,763 employment. (PEZA)
