Foreign investment pledges drop 83% in Q4

MANILA, Philippines — Foreign investments approved by the country’s main investment promotion agencies fell 82.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported yesterday.

Investment pledges cleared in the last quarter of 2017 fell to P21.6 billion from P125.7 billion in the same period the previous year.

These cover investments filed with the Board of Investments, Clark Development Corp., Philippine Economic Zone Authority, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan, BOI-Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao and Cagayan Economic Zone Authority.

This brought total approved foreign investment pledges to P105.6 billion in 2017, lower by 51.8 percent from P219 billion the previous year.

The bulk of foreign investments in the fourth quarter of 2017 came from Japan, US and Singapore.

Japan committed to invest P5.2 billion, comprising 24 percent of total. The US and Singapore, meanwhile, pledged P3.2 billion and P1.8 billion, 14.9 percent and 8.3 percent of total approved pledges, respectively.

By industry, manufacturing would receive the largest amount of investments at P8.3 billion, representing 38.4 percent of the total in the last quarter of 2017.

Real estate activities follow with investment pledges valued at P5.1 billion or 23.5 percent share, while administrative and support service activities followed with investment pledges of P 3.5 billion for a share of 16 percent.

By region, most of the investments would be used to finance projects in Calabarzon, P6.4 billion; National Capital Region (NCR), P5.5 billion; and Central Luzon, P4.9 billion.

The total approved investment pledges of both foreign and Filipino nationals reached P282.4 billion in the last quarter of 2017, up by 2.8 percent compared with P274.8 billion the previous year.

Investment pledges by Filipino nationals made up 92.4 percent of total pledges.

Total projects of foreign and Filipino investors approved by the seven IPAs for the fourth quarter of 2017 are expected to generate 29,813 jobs. Out of the

total anticipated jobs for the period, 64.1 percent would come from projects with foreign interest.