Foreign direct investments up 40% in Jan-Sept

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine’s push for good governance has led to a 40% increase in the past 9 month’s foreign investments in job-generating industries.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) stressed this in the foregn direct investments (FDI) report released on Monday, December 10, showing a US$1.1 billion FDI inflows in the January-to-September period. FDI a year ago reached only US$782 million. 

The bulk of the investments, the BSP said, originated from:

• United States
• Australia
• the Netherlands
• British Virgin Islands
• Japan

The investments benefitted manufacturing, real estate, wholesale and retail, mining and quarrying, financial and insurance, and transportation and storage sectors.

“The improvement in FDI was mainly driven by net infusion of equity capital amounting to US$1.2 billion. In particular, gross equity capital placements during the 9-month period aggregated US$1.4 billion, almost thrice the year-ago level of US$553 million,” the BSP said in a statement.

However, for the month of September alone, the BSP said net FDI inflows of the country reached US$55 million, an almost 40% drop from the US$138 million net inflows recorded in 2011. 

The BSP said net inflows consisted mainly of equity capital which reached US$57 million, lower than the US$121 million in September 2011. 

“Gross placements of equity capital amounting to US$102 million — sourced largely from the British Virgin Islands, the US, Macai, and Singapore – were channeled to the wholesale and retail trade, real estate, transportation and storage, and manufacturing sectors,” the BSP said. – Rappler.com