The Philippine Economic Zone Authority said Friday it approved P72.64 billion worth of investments in the first 10 months, down by 26.86 percent from P99.32 billion in the same period last year.
PEZA said this was due to the 45.37-percent decline in newly committed projects this year.
“Despite the pandemic, PEZA continuously received intents for expansions and new investments. In fact, export figure comparing 2019 and 2020 increased by 0.63 percent. The semiconductor and electronics sector continues to contribute the biggest export income, despite them being affected by the pandemic,” PEZA director-general Charito Plaza said during the virtual 4th general membership and CEO forum of the Semiconductor and Electronics Industry of the Philippines Inc.
Data showed that as of end-September, exports from PEZA-registered companies grew by less than 1 percent to $40.79 billion from $40.54 billion in the same period in 2019.
The pandemic also streamlined the workforce inside economic zones by 2.4 percent to 1,532,889 workers from 1,570,535 workers in the same last year.
Plaza said about 87 percent of locator-companies, or about 2,629 companies, were now operating after the different stages of lockdown, “while companies that have stopped operating comprise 13 percent of the total which is about 387 companies.”
About 84 percent of IT-BPO companies continued to operate, while 89 percent of PEZA companies in the manufacturing sector were operating, she said.
Investments in the semiconductor and electronics industry went down by 24.72 percent to P8.58 billion as of October from P11.76 a year ago, while employment also declined by 3.18 percent to 371,138 as of September from 383,311 a year earlier.
SEIPI president Dan Lachica said that despite the expected decline in overall exports in 2020, electronics exports reached $3.9 billion in September, up by 14.32 percent from August.
Lachica said the increase in exports and the required imported raw materials were due to the gradual easing of the material supply chain disruption and the ramping-up of operations amid the pandemic.
“These enabled the industry to support the global demand for industrial, mobility, personal computers, gaming, electric vehicles and medical electronic products,” he said.