MANILA, Nov. 13 (PNA) — The Philippines’ foreign portfolio investments posted a reversal in October 2015 after netting inflows amounting to US$ 28 million, the second net inflows since February this year bucking concerns on Fed lift-off and the weakness in the Chinese economy.
Data released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Friday showed that the latest figure is way better than the previous month’s US$ 324 million net outflows and year-ago’s US$ 180 million net outflows.
The central bank said total inflows of hot money, named as such due to the speed it comes in and out of an economy, for October went up by 20.4 percent to US$ 1.6 billion from month-ago’s US$ 1.37 billion level “due to renewed investor interest in government securities.”
It is, on the other hand, lower than year-ago’s US$ 1.8 billion.
Outflows in the 10th month this year reached US$ 1.6 billion, lower than the US$ 1.7 billion in the previous month and the US$ 1.9 billion in October 2014.
The central bank said bulk or 68.6 percent of the investments for October this year were placed in shares of publicly-listed companies while 31.2 percent and the remaining 0.3 percent were placed in peso-denominated government securities and other peso debt instruments, respectively.
Also, most or 78.2 percent of the investments came from the US, Singapore, UK, Japan and Belgium. (PNA)