by Raadee Sausa June 8, 2021 TOP developers have been moving out of Metro Manila and flocking to the Cavite-Laguna-Batangas corridor because...
June 8, 2021
TOP developers have been moving out of Metro Manila and flocking to the Cavite-Laguna-Batangas corridor because of its readiness for industrial activity, a real estate advisory firm PRIME Philippines said.
Cavite, Laguna and Batangas have attracted projects, ranging from office spaces to industrial lots and warehouses, with commercial land as something to look out for in the future, said PRIME’s head of research Francis Mina said.
"It's now a lot easier to traverse north to south,” Mina said, speaking from his personal experience.
“We’ve also seen cases of municipalities in the region being converted to cities because of high industrial and commercial activity brought about by ecozones,” he said.
The firm reported that Cavite, Laguna and Batangas have 365,000 square meters of total office space as of the first quarter of this year, 40 percent of which are business process outsourcing (BPO) companies. Cavite accounts for majority of this office space demand.
Meanwhile, industrial ecozones are concentrated in Laguna, though Batangas boasts the largest amount of land.
Mina added that accessibility and proximity to Metro Manila was observed as the key factor to land value growth.
Moreover, the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) is helping drive this growth in the area by increasing the number of economic zones, PEZA Director General Charito Plaza said.
She said that there are around 413 operating ecozones nationwide, 129 of them in Cavite, Laguna and Batangas, a result of the current efforts to decongest Metro Manila.
“We need to build economic zones in the countryside to attract investors so they bring their technology, to develop lands, create jobs, and grow new metropolitan areas in every region,” Plaza added.
One example of a PEZA-registered economic zone is the industrial-anchored LIMA Estate in Lipa-Malvar, Batangas, which has commercial, residential, and institutional components.
However, the estate doubled its total land area to 794 hectares from 250 hectares in under 10 years, Rafael de Mesa, first vice-president of the Aboitiz Integrated Economic Centers said.
He also addressed the impact of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act (CREATE), saying that incentivizing domestic enterprises to move to provincial locations opens up a new market for real estate developers in the area.
Under CREATE, the incentive for relocation outside the National Capital Region is an additional income tax holiday of three years.
Plaza previously noted that this, among other incentives, would be an important motivator in attracting investors and turning ecozones all over the country into a major economic driver.
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