Foreign portfolio investment up by 4.2% at $1.4B in April

Foreign portfolio investment in April amounted to $1.4 billion, a 4.2-percent increase compared with $1.3 billion a year earlier, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said on Friday.

Total transactions for the month yielded net inflows of $279 million, reflecting an improvement from $51 million recorded in the same period last year.

“About 82.2 percent of investments registered during the month were in Philippine Stock Exchangelisted securities (pertaining mainly to banks, holding firms, property companies, food, beverage and tobacco firms, and retail companies), while the balance went to peso government securities,” the central bank noted in a statement.

The United Kingdom, the United States, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Luxembourg were the top five investor countries, with combined share to total of 76.6 percent.

Outflows for the month ($1.1 billion) were lower by 18.0 percent and 13.6 percent, respectively, compared with those recorded in March 2018 ($1.34 billion) and a year earlier ($1.27 billion).

“The US continued to be the main destination of outflows, receiving 74.5 percent of total remittances,” the central bank said.

Registration of inward foreign investments with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is optional under the liberalized rules on foreign exchange transactions.

The issuance of a BSP registration document entitles the investor or his representative to buy foreign exchange from authorized agent banks and their subsidiary or affiliate foreign exchange corporations for repatriation of capital and remittance of earnings that accrue on the registered investment.

Without such registration, the foreign investor can still repatriate capital and remit earnings on his investment but the foreign exchange will have to be sourced outside the banking system.