80% of registered investments materialize, DTI says

MANILA  —The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is fending off criticisms that pledges secured during presidential trips do not materialize, saying that 80 percent of investments that the country registers year after year do get completed.

“Normally, the batting average of the [Board of Investments] for the past 10 years has been 80 percent of those who actually registered proceed on to operate the project,” said Trade Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel late Wednesday night. Rodolfo also heads the country’s lead investment promotion agency.

“But of course, the project mix has been different in the past 10 years. Right now, we are seeing very new types of industries like renewable energy. And that has been the number one source of investment [by] sector,” he added.

READ: Jan-Sept investment approvals double on renewable energy deals

He noted that renewable energy projects took longer to set up unlike investments in the business process outsourcing sector where a facility would be up in three to six months.

“We have to start somewhere. The important thing is that you build the pipeline so that in the future, these will all materialize into actual investments and actual jobs for our countrymen,” said Rodolfo.

READ: Bongbong Marcos’ foreign trips yield P4 trillion worth of investments

Of the P4 trillion worth of investments that were supposedly secured from President Marcos’ trips abroad, the trade official said 28 projects worth P300 billion have already been “actualized,” registered or undergoing registration.