The country’s foreign direct investments (FDI) in the first four months improved 18.7 percent to USD3.525 billion from only USD3.0 billion a year ago.
“This improvement reflects investor confidence in the Philippine economy’s resilience amid global uncertainties,” the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said on Wednesday.
The bulk of the improvement came from foreign investors reinvesting rather than repatriating their profits from their endeavors totaling USD978 million for the period versus only USD393 million a year earlier.
Investments in debt papers issued by the government and the private sector during the period fell slightly to only USD2.24 billion from a year ago of USD2.27 billion even as foreign investor reinvestment of their collective earnings remained unchanged at USD310 million.
According to the BSP, the bulk or 67 percent of the investments were poured into the financial services and insurance sectors and another 18 percent to manufacturing endeavors. Seven percent of the foreign investments went to real estate and the balance of eight percent in other lucrative endeavors.
Investors from the Netherlands accounted for 63 percent of foreign investments in those four months, Japan accounted for 22 percent and US investors only six percent.
But in April alone, the largest recipient of foreign investments proved to be the manufacturing sector which received 56 percent, real estate with 26 percent, wholesale and retail trade another 13 percent, financial and insurance only 10 percent and others 14 percent, the BSP said.
This four-month investment haul, the BSP stressed, represents investment actually deployment in domestic endeavors that generate employment for Filipinos and tax revenue for the nation’s coffers as opposed to commitment investments collected, for example, by the Philippine Statistics Authority.
