BoI OK’s more pledges as of May

THE BOARD of Investments (BoI) approved nearly a fifth more committed investments in the five months to May from a year ago, with foreign pledges alone growing by close to a third in value terms in the same period, the agency said in a press release on Thursday.

The BoI is the biggest contributor to Filipino and foreign investment pledges approved by various state promotion agencies, accounting for 82.2% of the P184.987-billion total at P152.118 billion in the first quarter, according to latest available data of the Philippine Statistics Authority.

In terms of foreign direct investment ( FDI) pledges alone, BoI was the second-biggest contributor in the same three months at 5.58% of the P14.208- billion total at P792.084 million.

BoI said in its Thursday press release that it approved 29% more FDI commitments at P7 billion as of May from P5.38 billion in 2017’s first five months, driving overall increase in value of both local and foreign project registrations up 18.92% to P207.48 billion from P174.472 billion in the same comparative five-month periods.

BoI tagged Japan as the top FDI contributor in the first five months at P2.645 billion, followed by Italy with P485 million, China with P472 million, the United States with P463 million, and Hong Kong with P206.82 million.

The increase in overall investment registrations in the first five months was fueled by power and energy projects ( P106.552 billion), transportation and storage ( P39.817 billion), manufacturing (P19.358 billion), real estate (P14.535 billion) and water supply (P13.872 billion). —