Foreign companies invested $451 million in the Philippines in October, bringing the total to $5 billion in the first 10 months, data from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas show.
Bangko Sentral said net inflows of foreign direct investments reached $451 million in October, up by 1.4 percent from $445 million a year ago, on sustained investors’ confidence in the economy.
“Favorable investor sentiment on the back of the country’s strong macroeconomic fundamentals resulted in net inflows across all FDI components,” Bangko Sentral said in a statement.
Net investments in debt instruments, or inter-company borrowings between foreign direct investors and their subsidiaries in the country, increased 71.1 percent in October to $287 million from $168 million a year ago.
Investments in equity capital also posted a net inflow of $101 million, as equity capital placements of $109 million outweighed withdrawals of $8 million.
“These net inflows in equity capital, however, were lower by 52.5 percent than the $213 million net inflows registered in the same period last year,” Bangko Sentral said.
The bulk of equity capital investments came from South Korea, Japan, the United States, Thailand and Taiwan. These were invested in financial and insurance; real estate; manufacturing; administrative and support service; and electricity, gas, steam and air-conditioning supply activities.
Data showed FDI net inflows in the first 10 months dropped 4.9 percent to $5 billion from $5.2 billion a year ago, mainly because of the 11.6-percent decline in investments in debt instruments to $2.8 billion from $3.2 billion, coupled with the 10.8-percent decrease in reinvestment of earnings to $637 million.
Bangko Sentral said full-year FDI inflows would likely reach $6 billion in 2015, in line with the sustained positive developments in the domestic economy and some improvement in the global economic conditions as well as the implementation of PPP projects that were awarded earlier.
Bangko Sentral said FDI inflows would likely to increase to $6.3 billion in 2016.
Bangko Sentral said the implementation of various public-private partnership projects, particularly in infrastructure, would give a strong signal to investors, boosting their confidence to invest in the country.
Foreign direct investments posted a record $6.2-billion net inflow in 2014.