Cagayan Economic Zone Authority Commended by Enrile for Adopting Blockchain

Editing by Nathaniel Cajuday

In a media release, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile sent his compliments to the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA), a special economic zone originally created through an act he authored in 1995, for the management’s digital adoption.

“We must celebrate CEZA’s recent efforts to reinvent the Cagayan Freeport through further digitization. By doing so, CEZA will be an example to other regional locations in the Philippines who can also transform by utilizing technology and innovation. A revitalized CEZA will definitely attract investors and enterprises to invest and operate in the zone,” Enrile said in a statement.

Special economic zones serve as regulatory environments that can grant special economic and legal privileges to the enterprises that choose to do business there, such as fiscal incentives and special tax rates.

Revitalizing its 1990 structure, CEZA is reimagining the economic zone under the leadership of Secretary Jaime R. Escano as a jurisdiction embedded in and driven by technological innovation as part of a renewed effort to digitize the Philippines.

According to the zone’s management, CEZA is now launching an aggressive new campaign to build infrastructure development within the zone by trying to attract more global investments into the region to better the economy within CEZA and across the Philippines, adding that the initiative aims to bring in investments to industries such as tourism, agriculture, finance, healthcare, retail, and real estate.

Blockchain Integration in CEZA

In line with their new technological innovations, CEZA is set to utilize blockchain technology from BLX, a global blockchain registered as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) in Wyoming, United States.

In a media release, CEZA clarified that it chose BLX among other blockchain tech firms for its transparency. 

“Since a blockchain is a digital public ledger, and BLX has a public explorer, which allows anyone to track the inflows and outflows of all accounts, there will be unprecedented transparency into business transactions, including everything from payment and banking solutions to license applications,” the press release read.

They also stressed that CEZA is pushing for transparency via BLX “not because it’s a buzzword, but because it also creates ease of doing business.”

“What transparency means in business is operational integrity: enterprises should have an insight into the status of any transaction or process at any given time. Having this real-time view into what’s going on business-wise is not only convenient, but it’s efficient. Enterprises can easily plan, strategize, and execute when they have this privilege,” Enrile added.

CEZA highlighted that with the venture, the zone will be a regulatory sandbox—where transparent and pragmatic regulations, due diligence and probity checks, entry controls of licensees, client protection, and risk-based supervision of licensees will be active. 

“This feat is significant because it’s a sign of things to come. Once you have a strong foundational blockchain like BLX and the technical infrastructure around it, you can more easily build other  technologies on top of it. Innovation, after all, is self-perpetuating: The best innovations are made atop of other great innovations,” explained Enrile, pointing out that fintech and blockchain will make it easier for other innovations – such as work digitization, internet of things, and artificial intelligence – to take hold among consumers and enterprises in the zone.

Moreover, CEZA noted that while it looks forward to all the coming innovations in web3, the economic zone plans to continue being legally progressive. The CEZA leadership assured that it is “committed to regularly updating policies and laws within the zone to keep up with the next generation of technology and make it as easy as possible for entrepreneurs to do what they do best: innovate.”

“The goal of driving and adopting legally progressive frameworks is to make CEZA have the best technology in the country, bar none. We will truly be a tech hub,” the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel concluded.

In 2020, CEZA’s administrator, Raul Lambino, and Japan’s Minister for Science and Technology Policy, Naokazu Takemoto, discussed financial technology in both countries, especially around the topics of cryptocurrency, blockchain, and security tokens. (Read more: PH CEZA and Japan Science and Tech Minister Meet to Discuss Crypto Laws and STO)

This article is published by BitPinas: Cagayan Economic Zone Authority Commended by Enrile for Adopting Blockchain

Disclaimer: BitPinas articles and its external content are not financial advice. The team serves to deliver independent, unbiased news to provide information for Philippine-crypto and beyond.

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