The Philippine Export Processing Zone (PEZA) pursued a five-day outbound mission to Tokyo resulting in P10.8 billion in solid investment expansion commitments from PEZA-registered Japanese enterprises.

Held from August 28 to September 2, PEZA participated in an investment forum organized by junca Global Holdings, and a series of business-to-business (B2B) meetings that capitalized on investment leads sought by PEZA, and those from Sumitomo Corporation and the First Philippines Industrial Park, Inc. (FPIP), one of PEZA’s leading developer-operators.

PEZA also explored new strategic areas of collaboration with Kiraboshi Bank, one of the leading regional banks in Tokyo, and with the Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, JAPAN (SME Support, JAPAN), a government agency under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in charge of supporting the needs of Japanese SMEs.

PEZA entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with NEOJAPAN that will allow PEZA to use NEOJAPAN’s desknet’s NEO and Appsuite, free of charge to PEZA until the end of 2023.

In an investment promotion forum organized by Junca Global Holdings last 29 August, Director General Tereso Panga highlighted Japan’s contribution to the Philippine economy, stating “Our top country investor, Japan, has a total of P 766.550 billion investments from 1995 to June 2023 making up for the 27.37 percent of PEZA’s overall investments by country. This investment comes from 877 Japanese locators with 339,751 direct employment as of May 2023 and exports of $ 6.370 billion from January to May this year.”

The forum was attended by representatives from various industries, specifically from renewable energy/alternative fuel to water recycling, real estate, financial services, food processing, cosmetics manufacturing and distribution including research and development on sprayed stem cell therapy, and human resource training and management.

Panga reported that “2023 is proving to mark the significant rise of the semiconductor industry with several industry leaders proceeding with their expansion plans to address the projected demand in their products due to the rise of the electronic vehicle industry and steady technological advancements in the downsizing of gadgets and their parts.”

“PEZA will make sure that the country will be poised to receive these investments as we have a small window to get the manufacturing of new high-tech products into the Philippines given the competitiveness of the industry,” added Panga.

The mission allowed PEZA to secure investment commitments from Japanese companies namely Terumo Corporation (P1 billion), Taiyo Yuden (P 1.6 billion), TDK Corporation (P7.2 billion), and Almex Technologies (P 1 billion). PEZA Corporate Communications Division