Japan’s Semiconductor Giant Eyes 20-Hectare Philippine Ecozone Site

FTZ News: A Japanese semiconductor company is set to break ground in November on a 20-hectare plant at the LIMA Estate in Batangas, Aboitiz Economic Estates said. The firm already operates in another industrial park in the Philippines. Rafael Fernandez de Mesa, the developer’s president and chief executive, did not give the name. He told reporters it is “one of the bigger global companies from Japan.”

That is as far as the identification went. LIMA already has electronics and semiconductor tenants. The new building is an add-on, not a first plant. De Mesa gave no peso figure, no hiring number and no date for the start of production. November is the only date he offered.

He used the project to talk about who else is taking space. About half of Aboitiz’s new locators each year, he said, come from its own network in the Philippines, or from companies already here that are adding room in its estates. “So, that tells you that those investors are happy with the Philippines,” he said. He did not say how many of those firms are Japanese, or how many make chips.

A second deal is less far along. A foreign food company wants 12 hectares at the TARI Estate in Tarlac. Aboitiz is taking it through registration. De Mesa said construction should start early next year. He did not name that company either. Most of the first tenants at TARI are in food and beverage. He expects the next batch to look more like LIMA, with electronics and semiconductor firms in the mix.

De Mesa tied the two estates to the Luzon Economic Corridor and to Pax Silica. Demand for space, he said, has held for 10 years. He hopes those programs will lift it. “Given that there’s this opportunity in front of us from the Luzon Economic Corridor to Pax Silica, we’re hoping that this demand that we’ve been seeing consistently over the last 10 years will actually increase with all of these favorable developments,” he said. Land, he added, is not enough. Utilities and workers have to be in place if the plants are going to run.

Aboitiz and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority also signed a memorandum for the next phase of EaseBiz, a program meant to make PEZA registration and startup simpler. EaseBiz started in 2022. Aboitiz has helped with more than two dozen PEZA registration cases under it, six of them after the model was written down in 2025. The next phase is about lining locator support up with PEZA’s The One Portal System.

PEZA director general Tereso Panga said the agency has automated 80 percent of its permitting. The target is 100 percent by next year. That would put PEZA among the first government offices with fully cashless and paperless transactions. “PEZA remains committed to enhancing ease of doing business in our ecozones so that investor confidence translates into concrete projects, quality jobs and increased exports,” he said.

The Batangas plant still has no name on it. A 20-hectare chip site from a large Japanese firm is an expansion if the groundbreaking happens. Until the company is named, and until PEZA lists it as a registered locator, November is a date the developer gave reporters. It is not yet a factory.

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