Foreign portfolio investments or hot money resulted in a net outflow of $205 million in 2017, a reversal of the net inflow of $404 million in 2016, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Thursday.
The Bangko Sentral said the withdrawal of foreign funds observed in the first quarter subsequently declined in the latter part of 2017 as investors reacted positively to the various developments in the country, including the approval of the first phase of the tax reform program.
Data showed that total inflows fell 8.9 percent in 2017 to $16.1 billion from $17.6 billion in 2016 while outflows declined to $16.3 billion from $17.2 billion.
About 81.9 percent of portfolio investments were mainly in PSE-listed securities and 17.5 percent were invested in peso government securities. Net inflows were noted for other peso debt instruments and unit investment trust funds.
The United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore, Luxembourg and Malaysia were the top five investor countries last year.