MANILA -The Board of Investments (BOI) on Tuesday said it approved P698 billion worth of investments during the first half of the year, growing its portfolio by more than 200 percent during the period owing to the surge in overseas financing for projects in the renewable energy sector.
The Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) lead investment promotion agency said that its total approved investments from January to June soared by 203.3 percent compared to the P230 billion it tallied during the same period in 2022.
“The increasing number of investments approvals reflect the growing attractiveness of the Philippines as an investment destination and highlights the country’s potential for further economic growth and development,” Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual said in a statement.
More jobs
“The successful and speedy implementation of investments means more stable and higher-paying jobs for Filipinos without unnecessary delays,” he added.
The investment promotion agency is targeting P1.5 trillion worth of investment approvals this year, after seeing strong signs of recovery in 2022.
In 2022, the BOI approved P729 billion worth of investments, recording an 11-percent growth and breaking a two-year decline, which began one year after the global outbreak of COVID-19.
Approved investments approved by the BOI totaled P655 billion in 2021, P1.02 trillion in 2020 and P1.14 trillion in 2019.
The BOI said that the investments during the first half of 2023—which were expected to create 29,965 new jobs—spanned 155 projects, with 60 percent of the funding coming from overseas sources.
These foreign investments soared by more than fifty times during the period, jumping from P7.89 billion during the first half of 2022 to P423 billion in the comparable period this year.
Germany leads
Meanwhile, domestic sources contributed the remaining P275 billion, which also saw a more moderate 24-percent increase compared to the P222 billion in 2022.
By source country, the investment promotion agency said that the bulk of foreign capital came from Germany, with P393 billion worth of projects coming from the economic giant.
The next biggest sources of investments were Singapore with a P16.8-billion contribution, the Netherlands with P3.57 billion, France with P2.04 billion, and the United States with P1.9 billion.
Most of the Investments were also in the renewable energy sector, amounting to P536 billion or 76.83 percent of the total, according to the BOI.
These investments span 30 projects, including ventures into solar, wind, hydropower and biomass energy.
Another heavily invested industry is the information and technology sector, with the BOI approving eight projects worth P95.5 billion, mostly to finance telecommunication towers and other IT-BPM (information technology and business process management projects.
Five transportation and storage projects worth P21.3 billion also came in, as well as 21 projects in manufacturing worth P16.1 billion and 11 in agriculture worth P6.4 billion. INQ
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