MANILA, Oct. 16 (PNA) — Foreign portfolio investments registered in September 2014 amounted to US$ 2.1 billion, reflecting a slight improvement (3.8 percent) from the previous month’s level.
Year-on-year, however, registered investments were lower by 17.5 percent due to the effects of the tapering of the quantitative easing program of the United States.
Transactions for the month resulted in overall net outflows after five months of net inflows starting April 2014 due to profit taking. This was in contrast to the US$ 683 million net inflows a year ago.
About 81.5 percent of the investments were in PSE-listed securities (mainly telecommunication companies; holding firms; banks; property firms; and food, beverage and tobacco companies); the rest of investments (18.5 percent) were in Peso GS. Transactions in all instruments yielded net outflows.
The United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Luxembourg, and Ireland were the top five investor countries for the month, with combined share to total of 80.4 percent.
The United States continued to be the main destination of outflows, receiving 77.5 percent of total.
Registration of inward foreign investments with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is voluntary 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/or their subsidiary/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. (PNA)