PEZA eyes Dagupan as economic zone

• Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?nid=3&rid=964981
• Saturday, February 18, 2017

By Leonardo V. Micua [(PNA), LAP/LVM/LVMICUA/RMA]

DAGUPAN CITY (PNA) -- The city of Dagupan is being eyed as a potential economic zone to host foreign investors, which can help boost the economy and the 10-point agenda of President Rodrigo Duterte.

This was bared by Emmanuel SD Lopez, consultant of the Philippine Economic Cooperation Agency (PEZA) who came to Dagupan on Thursday and held talks with city officials led by City Administrator Farah Decano.

"I've taken as a personal initiative to get Dagupan as one of the priorities. We are hoping that if you have something on the line, we would like to include you already in the ecozone as we are embarking on local marketing so Dagupan would be highlighted as possible area for economic zone," he said.

He sees possible development of aqua culture and processing industry, and said because of the city's huge population (171,000 plus based on the last census), it can also explore the possibility of putting up a Business Processing Outsourcing-Information Technology park.

An agro-industrial park, Lopez said, needs at least 25 hectares of space which may not be on the same site while at BPO-IT park needs at least one hectare or a building with 10,000 square meters as 1,000 call center agents could easily be absorbed by just one company.

He said a BPO-IT park is ideal in Dagupan given the fact that the city has three universities and 12 colleges where students speak good English that is considered as the language of business all over the world.

"Here in Dagupan, we can probably, with the support of Local Government Unit, build an ecozone and PEZA will collaborate to develop it, build up its strength, together with its competitive pattern with other ecozones in other parts of the country," Lopez said.

The other ecozones in the country are in Cebu, Cavite, Laguna, Baguio and other parts of the country.

With an ecozone in Dagupan, the graduates and qualified unemployed need not go abroad any more to work as jobs will soon be made readily available to them.

Lopez also told city officials that the process of applying for an area to become an Export Processing Zone Authority-registered economic zone has been made simpler.

Upon submission of all the pertinent documents, a city resolution must be passed by the local legislative body authorizing the city mayor to apply for an economic zone.

If all the documents are in, "we can guarantee that in 21 days, we will approve it," Lopez said.

The city can then have an area that is credited by the PEZA, and locators can be provided with both the fiscal and non fiscal incentives.

Fiscal incentives include the grant to locators of income tax holiday, land taxes holiday for four to six years, extendable to eight years, and tax-free importation of all the capital equipment and the exemption from paying Value Added Tax (VAT).

The non-fiscal incentives include the expedited processing of visas of foreign executives and the guarantee for industrial peace which means labor strikes are banned as they could set back productivity.

"Once you are able to identify a piece of land, property owned by the city or by public and private enterprises, we can accredit all these as PEZA-accredited zone," Lopez said.

He said he was informed by City Administrator Decano that Dagupan has a Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) which identified three additional growth areas and these are privately owned and classified as agricultural, thus need to be converted into commercial and industrial areas.

Lopez noted that PEZA has an existing memorandum of agreement with both the Department of Agrarian Reform and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources that gives leeway to conversion, provided that the land is proven to be no longer productive.

"I will not brag about it but definitely, it could be done," he said.