Foreign investment pledges up

MANILA, Philippines — Foreign investments approved by the country’s investment promotion agencies (IPAs) went up by 10 percent in the first half of the year, driven by the surge of approved pledges in the second quarter, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed.

Approved projects from January to June this year amounted to P45.2 billion, from P41 billion in the same period last year, the PSA said.

Bulk of approvals were made in the second quarter as total approved foreign investments surged 70.4 percent to P30.9 billion from P18.2 billion in the same period a year ago.

The PSA said the total approvals for the second quarter were made by five out of seven IPAs, namely the Board of Investments (BOI), Clark Development Corp., Philippine Economic Zone Authority and Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority as well as Cagayan Economic Zone Authority.

“No reports were submitted by the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan (AFAB) and BOI-Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BOI-ARMM),” the PSA said.

Indonesia, Japan and the United States were the top three prospective investing countries during the six-month period.

Pledges from Indonesia reached P6.4 billion, acounting for 20.8 percent of the the total foreign investments during the period, while Japan and the US committed P5.1 billion and P 4.0 billion, or 16.5 percent and 12.9 percent of the total investments, respectively.

Meanwhile, the manufacturing industry received the largest amount of pledges in the second quarter at P12.8 billion or a 41.5 percent share of total.

Construction came in second with investment pledges valued at P7.1 billion or a 23 percent share. Administrative and support service activities followed at P5.4 billion or a 17.4 percent share.

“The biggest approved foreign investments in the second quarter of 2018, amounting to P12.9 billion or 41.6 percent, would be intended to finance projects in the National Capital Region (NCR),” the PSA said.

The second biggest, amounting to P8 billion or 25.7 percent, was pledged to CALABARZON. Central Luzon followed with P4.3 billion or 13.8 percent.

Investment commitments of both foreign and Filipino nationals, however, reached P114.7 billion in the second quarter, down by 50.2 percent from the previous year’s P230.4 billion.

“Filipino nationals shared 73 percent of the total investment pledges during the quarter,” the PSA said.

Total amount of projects by foreign and Filipino investors in the second quarter of 2018 are expected to generate 44,526 jobs. This is 53.2 percent lower than the projected employment of 95,131 jobs in the same quarter in 2017, the PSA reported.