Foreign investment inflows seen rising by 20%

The Department of Trade and Industry expects the country’s foreign direct investments (FDIs) to grow by as much as 20 percent next year to about $4.8 billion, on the back of foreign investors’ increased interest in the Philippines.

“Wherever we go, there is such a huge interest from foreign investors in the Philippines. We went to Europe earlier, and just came back from Japan last week. We met with representatives of various companies and the overwhelming interest (of these companies in the country) is almost too good to be true,” Trade Secretary Gregory L. Domingo said in a briefing on Wednesday.

According to Domingo, their road show in London in October alone was able to generate two more investment missions from the United Kingdom. These missions, which gathered companies from various industries, came to the country in November and early this month.

For this year alone, Domingo expressed confidence that the Philippines could surpass the FDI target of about $4 billion, 43 percent higher than the actual FDIs last year of $2.8 billion. As of end September 2013, FDIs stood at $3.1 billion, which was 10 percent higher than year-ago level.

The Philippines is reportedly in a sweet spot and is no longer difficult to promote, given substantial developments that saw banner GDP growths over the past quarters and investment grade ratings from global credit rating agencies. Its huge population and the availability of a young, skilled and English-speaking workforce provided the additional boost to the country’s chances of attracting more foreign investments.

Although the country’s FDIs remained marginal compared to some of its peers in the region, the Philippines was able to buck the general decline, at least in the first half of the year, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad).

Unctad’s latest Global Investment Trends Monitor report showed that the Philippines posted a 10.9-percent increase in FDI inflows to $2.2 billion in the first half of the year, the second-biggest increase in Southeast Asia next to Malaysia, which recorded a 14.4-percent increase in investments to $5.9 billion. Next to the Philippines are Indonesia with FDI increase of 6.8 percent to $8.3 billion and Vietnam (up 3 percent to $3.9 billion).

Thailand saw a 54-percent decline in FDI inflows to $1.9 billion in the first semester of 2013 while Singapore suffered a 7.9-percent drop to $25.9 billion.