Investment pledges down 95% in February
Credit to Author: TYRONE JASPER C. PIAD| Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2019 16:55:20 +0000
Combined foreign and domestic investment approvals lost momentum in February, plunging by 95 percent from a year earlier after a 91-percent surge at the start of 2019.
Investment pledges approved for the month amounted to just P3.85 billion, the Trade department reported on Thursday, down markedly from the P80.31 billion posted a year earlier.
It was also reversal from January when approved pledges nearly doubled to P97.9 billion from P51.3 billion.
Year to date, investment approvals fell by 23 percent to P101.72 billion from the P131.61 billion recorded in January-February last year.
The Trade department attributed the February plunge to a “timing issue”, noting that other investments were still undergoing review and would be reflected in coming months.
“We have key projects in the pipeline, particular in area of power, that are still undergoing BoI’s (Board of Investment) rigorous evaluation process on technical and financial aspects; and equally important, on their compliance with requirements for BoI registration,” Trade Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo said.
A total of 15 projects, down from 34 in 2018, were approved in February. These are expected to generate 1,561 jobs — 61 percent fewer than last year.
The real estate sector accounted for the most approved investments at P1.27 billion, followed by energy at P991.58 million and human health and social work activities at P970 million.
By region, Eastern Visayas cornered the most investment approvals with P970 million, followed by Central Luzon, Western Visayas and that National Capital Region at P836.63 million, P824.82 million and P599.58 million respectively.
Foreign investments accounted for 9 percent of the total approved pledges at P340.33 million.
Most of these came from Italy (P250.74-million), followed by United Kingdom (P16.50 million), Singapore (P6.65 million) and Myanmar (P4.02 million).
No investments from United States and China were approved for the month.
For the two-month period, the Trade department said 34 projects had been approved, 51 percent fewer from previous year’s 69.
The number of expected jobs subsequently fell by 42 percent to 4,648 from 8,052 in 2018.
By sector, power projects (P49.42 billion) accounted for the biggest share, followed by information and communications (P33.14 billion), manufacturing (P12.93 billion), real estate (P2.15 billion) and human health/hospitals (P1.82 billion).
“We remain optimistic of meeting the P1-trillion target set by our chairman, DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) Secretary Ramon Lopez, for BoI this year. It is a timing issue as we cannot and we do not rush project approvals,” Rodolfo said.
Lopez agreed, saying that “some projects got to be considered in March meetings.”
The Trade chief said the was expecting a “high growth” for March and a 50-percent uptick for the first quarter.
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