Foreign investment pledges surge in fourth quarter of 2018

MANILA, Philippines — Foreign investment pledges approved by the country’s seven investment promotion agencies rose by 322 percent year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2018, with half of the total intended for Northern Mindanao, the Philippine Statistics Authority reported yesterday. 

Investment pledges in the fourth quarter of 2018 reached P91.2 billion, an increase of almost fourfold compared to P21.6 billion in the same quarter the previous year. 

For the entire 2018, meanwhile, total approved foreign investment pledges reached P179 billion, an increase of 69.3 percent from P105.7 billion in 2017.

These cover investment commitments cleared by the Board of Investments (BOI), Clark Development Corp. (CDC), Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) and Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) as well as the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan (AFAB), BOI-Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BOI-ARMM) and Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA). 

In the last quarter of 2018, the top three prospective investing countries were China, Singapore and Japan. 

Chinese firms committed to invest a total of P48 billion or 52.6 percent of the total approved investments during the quarter. 

Firms from Singapore and Japan, meanwhile, pledged P15.3 billion and P4.8 billion respectively, or 16.7 percent and 5.2 percent of the total approved foreign investments. 

By economic sector, manufacturing would receive the largest amount of foreign investments approved in the last quarter of 2018 with P58.8 billion or 64.5 percent share. 

Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply came in second with investment pledges valued at P13.3 billion or 14.6 percent share. 

Administrative and support service activities followed with investment pledges of  P6.9 billion or 7.6 percent share.

By region, majority of the approved foreign investments in the fourth quarter of 2018 would be intended to finance projects in Region 10 – Northern Mindanao amounting to P47.5 billion or 52.1 percent. 

Region 4A – Calabarzon would receive the second highest amount at P20.3 billion, representing 22.3 percent. This was followed by the National Capital Region at P13.1 billion or 14.3 percent.

Approved investment commitments of foreign and Filipino nationals combined reached P605.1 billion in the last quarter of 2018, up by 114.2 percent compared with P282.5 billion in the same period in the previous year. 

Filipinos continued to dominate the investments approved during the quarter, sharing 84.9 percent or P513.9 billion worth of pledges.

These projects are expected to generate 72,630 jobs, 66.9 percent of which would come from projects with foreign interest.