Foreign investment projects approved by the Board of Investments rose 29 percent in the first five months to P7 billion from P5.38 billion a year ago.
The growth in FDI pledges contributed to the overall 18.9-percent growth in BoI registrations to P207.48 billion in January to May from P174.47 billion recorded in the same period last year.
Actual FDIs compiled by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas showed $2.2 billion in net inflows as of the first quarter, up 43.5 percent from $1.5 billion in the same quarter in 2017.
Data from the BoI showed that Japan was the top source of investment pledges with P2.64 billion in the five-month period, followed by Italy with P485 million, China with P472 million, the United States with P463 million and Hong Kong with P206.82 million.
Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. was the top investor in May 2018 which invested another P2.56 billion in the Comprehensive Automotive Resurgence Strategy program, including P899 million in body side member stamping. The body shell of the Toyota Vios model is now manufactured locally from a previously purely welding operation.
Mitsubishi Motor Philippines Corp. reported an investment of P820 million in the Cars program this year.
“The Philippines has a growing economy. In fact, our country is projected to grow more than five times its current economic size and become the 24th biggest economy in the world by 2030. Together with this growth, we see stronger demand for many projects on infrastructure, services, manufacturing, and utilities,” said Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez.
“These figures are just preliminaries. We expect more foreign investments to come in as a result of the various presidential visits and investment promotion activities conducted in the past months,” said Lopez.
Lopez said the recent Philippine mission to South Korea yielded $4.8 billion worth of investment pledges and business expansion intentions that were expected to generate 50,800 employment opportunities for Filipinos once these businesses were operational.
“Our next goal now is to ensure that these investment pledges and job opportunities will materialize, and allow us to share the economic gains of the country, especially to those at the bottom of the pyramid,” he said.
Meanwhile, investment pledges from local companies also grew 18.6 percent in the five-month period to P200.547 billion from P169.091 billion in the same period last year.
The increase in investment registrations in the first five months was buoyed by power and energy projects at P106.552 billion; transportation and storage, P39.817 billion; manufacturing, P19.358 billion; real estate, P14.535 billion; and water supply P13.872 billion.
“While the BoI’s current investment incentives are primarily geared towards domestic investors in strategic industries, the increase in FDI shows that there are opportunities for attracting foreign companies to serve domestic, contestable [by imports] markets, if only the relevant incentive tools are available,” said Trade undersecretary and BoI managing head Ceferino Rodolfo.
“It is in this context that we are supportive of the proposed Train Package 2, in order to make our incentive regime more relevant and responsive to needs of investors in priority strategic and socially-relevant industries,” he said.
In terms of geographical investment locations, Region III has the most numbers of locators with P77.35 billion followed by Region 1V with P57.99 billion.
The National Capital Region came only as the third placer with P31.96 billion as the 2017-2019 Investment Priorities Plan was purposely intended to disperse businesses outside Metro Manila.
Region XI came in as the fourth placer with P14.136 billion, followed by Region VI with P3.493 billion.
