Q3 investment pledges up 165%

INVESTMENT commitments from overseas jumped by 165 percent year-on-year to P48.6 billion in the third quarter, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said Thursday.

From July to September, the amount of foreign investments registered with seven of the country’s investment promotion agencies (IPA) exceeded the P18.3 billion posted in the same period last year.

In the third quarter, the Board of Investments registered P28.5 billion worth of investment projects; the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan, P196.3 million; the BOI-Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, P3.2 billion; the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority, P90.5 million; Clark Development Corp., P2.3 billion; Philippine Economic Zone Authority, P13.9 billion, and Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, P394.6 million.

IPAs dangle tax and other incentives to attract both local and foreign investors.

At the end of the first nine months, approved foreign investments totaled P106.6 billion, up 16.2 percent from P91.8 billion a year ago.

In the third quarter, the top three sources of prospective investments were the Netherlands (P27.7 billion), Japan (P4.1 billion) and South Korea (P3.6 billion).

As of end-September, the top sources of prospective investments were the Netherlands (P45.7 billion), Japan (P15.3 billion) and Singapore (P12.2 billion).

The top three preferred sectors of these investors in the third quarter were: electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (P27.8 billion); manufacturing (P7.9 billion), and administrative and support service activities (P3.6 billion).

The sectors poised to enjoy the most amount of foreign investments in the first nine months were manufacturing (P38.8 billion); electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (P28.4 billion), and administrative and support service activities (P8.6 billion).

Combining foreign pledges with commitments of local companies, the seven IPAs approved a total of P168.2 billion worth of projects in the third quarter, up 5.4 percent from P159.6 billion last year. Filipino firms contributed P119.6 billion or 71.1 percent of the projects that were granted fiscal and other perks from July to September.

At the end of the first nine months, the seven IPAs received commitments amounting to P354.6 billion from local and foreign firms combined, down 32.4 percent from P524.6 billion a year ago.