BOI investment pledges hit P392.03B, up 32%

Investment pledges registered with the Board of Investments (BOI) reached P392.03 billion as of Oct. 4, a 32-percent increase from the P296.04 billion recorded in the same period last year.

The investment commitments were spread across 332 projects registered under BOI so far this year.

This moves the investment promotion agency closer to reaching its yearend target, which was recently raised to P550 billion from the previous target of P500 billion.

For the past five years, the BOI recorded an average annual investment commitment of P398 billion.

If this year’s target is achieved, it will mark the BOI’s highest level of investment commitments since 1997 when the agency recorded pledges worth P580 billion.

While BOI Chair and Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez will not set the yearend target higher than the pledges reached in 1997, he hinted at the possibility of moving past P550 billion.

“What’s exciting is that we expect to exceed our target with local and foreign investors keenly exploring opportunities in energy, infrastructure and agribusiness,” he said in his speech during the 2017 BOI Guingulan awards.

He said investors were banking on the country’s strong macroeconomic fundamentals, the demographic sweet spot, and the increased market access made possible by a number of trade arrangements within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), with the United States and the European Union.

Moreover, he added that investors were also betting on the construction boom in line with the government’s more than P8 trillion infrastructure ambition.

“All of these investment projects are keenly being studied by the project evaluation teams of BOI. May it be big or small, our technically abled men and women of BOI with various expertise in engineering, law, economics, marketing, and among many diverse number of industries, made sure these projects are impactful, sociallyrelevant, and promote innovation,” Lopez said.