Approved foreign investments down a fifth in Q3

Approved commitments from foreign investors in the third quarter decreased by a fifth, a reversal of the second quarter performance, which saw upcoming investments from overseas double year-on-year.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said on Tuesday that foreign investment approvals by government investment promotion agencies (IPAs) from July to September decreased by 22.4 percent, dropping to P13.05 billion from P16.82 billion in the three-month period in 2021.

This is in stark contrast to the previous quarter’s performance where upcoming foreign-led investments in the country that sought tax perks from the government rose 105 percent year-on-year to P46.23 billion.

“The [foreign investment] commitments for the third quarter of 2022 were mainly driven by investments from Japan, which accounted for 34.5 percent of the total,” the country’s statistics agency said.

This was followed by South Korea, which had a 15.5-percent share and Singapore with a 12.6-percent contribution.

The PSA data show that Japan committed P4.5 billion while South Korea and Singapore pledged P2.02 billion and P1.64 billion, respectively.

The IPAs included the Board of Investments (BOI), BOI-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Clark Development Corp., Philippine Economic Zone Authority, Poro Point Management Corp. , Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority and Tourism Infrastructure Economic Zone Authority.

The manufacturing sector cornered more than half of the promised investments, with the industry set to receive P7.20 billion or 55.2 percent of the total pledges.