THE Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) said that investment approvals have now been received due to the pledges between January and November 2023, with a notable surge of 147 percent or P140.88 billion.

It is higher from the P57.05 billion that was posted in 2022.

Likewise, Peza said that the investment pledges during the first 11 months ahd already exceeded the full-year approvals of PEZA in the previous year.

According to PEZA Director General Tereso Panga, the Marcos administration with the investment promotion agency (IPA) has done its share in reversing the negative growth in investment approvals despite the domestic and global economic challenges.

“The road to progress has not been easy for any developing economy. We have our policy challenges, the global Covid pandemic. We saw four years of decline in investments,” he said.

It will be recalled that in 2018, the PEZA approvals stood at P140.2 billion, which further declined in the succeeding years to P117.54 billion in 2019, P95.03 billion in 2020 and P69.30 billion in 2021.

PEZA said that they were able to reverse the trend, posting a 103-percent growth in 2022 with total investments amounting to PHP140.7 billion.