The Philippines registered $76 million in net outflows of foreign portfolio investments or hot money in January, lower than the $205-million net withdrawals in December 2023, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said Friday.
It also marked a reversal of the $291-million net inflows recorded a year ago, data from the BSP showed.
The BSP said transactions on foreign investments registered through authorized agent banks (AABs) showed gross outflows of $1.3 billion and gross inflows of $1.2 billion in the first month of the year.
Hot money refers to foreign funds temporarily parked in the equities and money market to take advantage of short-term interest.
The BSP said the $1.2-billion investments in January went up by $170 million, or 15.9 percent, from $1.1 billion recorded in December 2023.
It said 62.7 percent of investments went to Philippine Stock Exchange-listed securities amounting to $775 million, while about 37.3 percent were in peso government securities worth $460 million. The balance was placed in other instruments.
The January investments came mostly from the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore, Luxembourg and Hongkong with combined share of 85.5 percent.
Meanwhile, the $1.31 billion gross outflows in January also increased 3.2 percent from $1.27 billion in December.
The US remained the top destination of outflows, receiving $600 million or 45.8 percent of total outward remittances.
Data showed that on a year-on-year basis, registered investments in January increased 23.1 percent from $1 billion, while gross outflows went up by 84 percent.
Registration of inward foreign investments delegated to AABs by the BSP is optional under the rules on foreign exchange (FX) transactions. It is required only if the investor or its representative will purchase FX from AABs and/or their subsidiary/affiliate foreign exchange corporations for repatriation of capital and remittance of earnings that accrue on the registered investment.
The BSP said that without such registration, the foreign investor could still repatriate capital and remit earnings on its investment but the FX would have to be sourced outside the banking system.