MANILA, April 10 (PNA) — The Board of Investments (BOI) has approved more projects in January to March 2015 which translates to higher investment approvals and more job generation.
BOI Managing Head Adrian S. Cristobal Jr. said in a press briefing Friday that approved investments of BOI in the first quarter of 2015 increased by 17 percent to PHP54.62 billion from PHP46.77 billion in the same period in 2014.
The said amount of investments were from 59 projects approved by the investment promotion agency (IPA) in Q1 2015, slightly higher from 54 projects okayed in Q1 2014.
“When fully operational, the 59 projects approved during the period are expected to generate 18,174 jobs, up 65 percent from last year’s 11,636,” said Cristobal, who is also a Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) undersecretary.
He mentioned that majority of the approved investments in Q1 2015 came from electricity, gas steam and air conditioning supply sector with total investments of PHP13.76 billion, an increase of 30 percent from 2014’s PHP10.54 billion.
Investments in manufacturing sector, on the other hand, has surged by 517 percent from PHP2.08 billion in Q1 2014 to PHP12.9 billion in Q1 2015.
“The surge in manufacturing projects reflects the results of the initiatives of the Manufacturing Resurgence Program (MRP), a government priority program that was initiated to push for a 30 percent increase in gross value added (GVA) and a 15 percent increase in employment by 2025,” Cristobal noted.
He added that the BOI also approved a total of PHP10.48 billion in transportation and storage sector; PHP9.09 billion in real estate activities; information and communications technology, PHP4.67 billion; education, PHP1.4 billion; and agriculture, forestry and fisheries, PHP198 million.
He mentioned that 96 percent or a total of PHP52.55 billion worth of investments were from local investors while the remaining 4.0 percent or an amount of PHP2.38 billion were from foreign investors.
Approved foreign investments in BOI this Q1 2015 plummeted by 49 percent from PHP4.68 billion in the same period last year.
Top foreign investments in BOI were from Singapore with PHP1.41 billion, British Virgin Islands with PHP877.75 million, China with PHP31.19 million, Cooks Island with PHP8.97 million, Japan with PHP8.77 million, Germany with PHP7.77 million, United Kingdom with PHP4.0 million, and India with PHP3.37 million.
“First, it shows that there’s strong domestic confidence among our Filipino companies on our investment climate. Second, bulk of the foreign investments that are coming in go to the exports processing zones,” Cristobal said.
“Here [in BOI] we have the domestic strategic industries,” he added. (PNA)