Total foreign direct investments (FDI)a approved in the first quarter of 2011 by the four major investment promotion agencies (IPA) amounted to PhP 22.0 billion, 52.8 percent lower than the FDIb approved in Q1 2010. Except for the Board of Investments (BOI), the other IPAs namely Clark Development Corporation (CDC), Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), and Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) suffered setbacks in FDI applications with SBMA and CDC registering the highest declines of 93.7 and 92.0 percent, respectively.
United States of America (USA) led all other countries with investment pledges of PhP 6.7 billion, accounting for 30.6 percent of total approved FDI during the quarter, followed by Japan and Korea at PhP 4.7 billion or 21.5 percent, and PhP 3.8 billion or 17.5 percent, respectively.
Manufacturing remained as top recipient of FDI commitments as it stands to receive 76.1 percent of the total approved FDI. The amount of PhP 16.8 billion intended to fund projects in manufacturing is however 60.9 percent lower than last year’s PhP 42.9 billion. Trailing far behind are Administrative and support service activities at PhP 1.8 billion or 8.2 percent, and Real estate activities at PhP 1.5 billion or 6.7 percent worth of investment commitments.
Despite the decrease in FDI, the combined approved investments of foreign and Filipino nationals reached PhP 161.9 billion in the first quarter of 2011, up by 76.5 percent from last year’s PhP 91.8 billion. Filipino nationals more than made up for the decrease in FDI by committing PhP 139.9 billion in investments for Q1 2011, more than three times the PhP 45.1 billion committed a year ago.
Foreign and Filipino ventures approved by the four major IPAs in Q1 2011 are expected to create 41,205 jobs, 1.5 percent higher than last year’s projected employment of 40,612. Out of these total expected jobs, 79.1 percent or 32,582 jobs would come from investments with foreign interest while the remaining 20.9 percent or 8,623 are from Filipino investors.
ROMULO A. VIROLA
Secretary General
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aApproved FDI represent the amount of proposed contribution or share of foreigners to various projects in the country as approved and registered by the IPAs. This consists of equity, loans and reinvested earnings.
bStarting Q1 2011 FDI report, the 2009 Philippine Standard Industrial Classification (PSIC) is adopted in classifying the industry. The 2009 PSIC was used for the years 2010 and 2011 to make the data comparable.
Q1 2011 Foreign Investments Summary