Foreign investment pledges up

Foreign investments approved by the country’s investment promotion agencies (IPAs) went up by 10 percent in the first half of the year, driven by the surge of approved pledges in the second quarter, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed.

Approved projects from January to June this year amounted to P45.2 billion, from P41 billion in the same period last year, the PSA said.

Bulk of approvals were made in the second quarter as total approved foreign investments surged 70.4 percent to P30.9 billion from P18.2 billion in the same period a year ago.

The PSA said the total approvals for

the second quarter were made by five out of seven IPAs, namely the Board of Investments (BOI), Clark Development Corp., Philippine Economic Zone Authority and Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority as well as Cagayan Economic Zone Authority.

“No reports were submitted by the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan (AFAB) and BOI-Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BOIARMM),” the PSA said.

Indonesia, Japan and the United States were the top three prospective investing countries during the sixmonth period.

Pledges from Indonesia reached P6.4 billion, accounting for 20.8 percent of the the total foreign investments during the period, while Japan and the US committed P5.1 billion and P 4.0 billion, or 16.5 percent and 12.9 percent of the total investments, respectively.

Meanwhile, the manufacturing industry received the largest amount of pledges in the second quarter at P12.8 billion or a 41.5 percent share of total.

Construction came in second with investment pledges valued at P7.1 billion or a 23 percent share. Administrative and support service activities followed at

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