Indian Firms Want Their Own Pharma Zone in the Philippines

FTZ News: Indian companies told the Philippine Economic Zone Authority they want a zone reserved for their own drug and biotechnology plants. PEZA said the request came up when it received a delegation in Manila. The agency also showed the group open lots at the Victoria Industrial Park in Tarlac, a site it has been selling as a place for pharmaceutical investment.

The visitors were from the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce Philippines Inc. and the ASEAN-India Business Council. Puran Chand Dawar, chairman of Dawar Footwear Industries, and Vishal Vishnu Hathiramani, president of FICCI Philippines, led the group. Twenty-one people came, from solar power, drugs, biotechnology, agriculture and manufacturing. PEZA said the talk covered trade, investment and other business. The delegation, the agency said, was interested in land still open at the Tarlac park and in an Indian-only economic zone for pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and related plants.

They also asked about equity stakes, joint ventures, factories and supply contracts. PEZA has no signed deal from the meeting. The account is the agency’s statement after the visit.

Manila is chasing a preferential trade agreement with India at the same time. Trade Undersecretary Allan Gepty said at the ASEAN-India Business Forum that the government wants to open those talks next year. Indian companies have been looking at the Philippines while that agreement is still only a plan.

“Indian industry sees the Philippines not only as a market, but as an important ASEAN partner and a base for regional growth,” Dawar said. India, he said, brings scale, technology, entrepreneurship and money to invest. The Philippines, he said, has trained workers, a useful location and economic zones already in place. “Our message is simple: let us move from broad possibilities to bankable projects and convert this potential into investment, jobs and shared growth,” he said.

Panga, the PEZA official, said commercial ties with India have been picking up and that Indian companies want in on pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. The agency said it has been courting Indian firms while it tries to widen supply lines. “For PEZA, these investments are crucial to advancing pharmaceutical localization, strengthening our domestic supply chain and contributing to more accessible and affordable medicines for Filipinos,” Panga said. He said the agency would keep working to turn the interest into projects that hire people, build up industries the government calls strategic, and pay off for both countries.

The statement names no company ready to build, no acreage and no peso figure, for the Tarlac lots or for the Indian zone. Victoria Industrial Park is described only as a rising site for drug investment, with land still available. The exclusive zone is something the delegation asked about. PEZA did not say it had approved one. Solar, agriculture and general manufacturing were on the visitors’ list too, so the drug and biotech request was one item in a wider look at the country.

Gepty’s trade talks are not due to start until next year, and that is only the aim. Until those talks set rules on tariffs and market access, an Indian-only zone would have to run on the incentives PEZA already gives locators, and on whatever land the Tarlac park, or some other site, can actually turn over. Dawar talked about bankable projects. The meeting produced a statement. It did not produce a plant./.