IMPORT suppliers of Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza)- based firms are now gearing up for China’s recovery, after the world’s largest supplier comes back after temporarily limiting its business operation due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Peza Director General Charito Plaza told SunStar Cebu that this is a welcome development and an advantage to companies that source their raw materials from China. The spread of the new coronavirus, which started in China in 2019, has wreaked havoc on the global supply chain, thus disrupting businesses across all industries.

According to Plaza, raw material loss incurred by import suppliers of Peza-based manufacturing firms was at 45 to 50 percent.

“And now they have slowly recovered with China going back to business,” she said.

Plaza is hoping that the government will soon authorize the economic zones and their locators to fully resume operations. She said Peza was able to maintain Covid-free ecozones due to the strict enforcement and compliance of quarantine measures.

For instance, in Mactan Economic Zone (MEZ), only 70 locators have continued their business operation, while the 64 others were on shutdown throughout the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) period. MEZ has about 134 locators.

Of the total 57,635 MEZ workers, only 6,363 are working as part of the skeletal force.

Plaza said that the agency’s Incident Command System in response to the Covid-19 crisis has established requirements for companies in ecozones to continue their operations during this period of ECQ.

Latest available data showed that China was the country’s biggest supplier of imported goods with 12.9 percent share of the total imports in February 2020. Import value from this country amounted to US$908.79 million during the month, from $1,618.02 million in February 2019.

Total imported goods in February 2020, however, dropped just 11.6 percent to US$7.06 billion from $7.98 billion in the same period last year.

Imports of electronic products valued at about $2 billion declined by 2.4 percent. Imports of raw materials and intermediate goods, on the other hand, dropped by 8.7 percent.

‘Martial law-type’

Meanwhile, Plaza appealed for a unified and synchronized plan, rules, policies and enforcements by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases, national agencies and local government units for the duration of the ECQ.

This comes after reports of a possible martial law-type of ECQ implementation as Luzon enters its seventh week of isolation.

“There is no need for martial law, but the utilization of the right tactics, strategies and a unified enforcement of quarantine measures, emergency rules and policies in order to establish public order,” the Peza chief said.

“The Covid-19 pandemic’s three main challenges that need to be addressed are health, economy, and public order. Thus, types of tactics and strategies are needed to address these three major issues. It must be planned and calculated wisely,” she said.

Plaza called for all agencies to put their heads together and come up with one policy that will further be implemented in the whole nation. “Everything must be strategized and harmonized together, not ‘kanya-kanya.’” (JOB WITH PR)