BOI-listed investments hit new record in 2018

By: Roy Stephen C. Canivel, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Dec 24, 2018

The Board of Investments (BOI) registered P907.2 billion worth of investment pledges for 2018, setting another all-time high for the second year in a row.

In a statement, BOI said that this marked a 47.1-percent increase from the previous record of P616.8 billion reached in 2017.

The final figure was also beyond expectations. BOI had earlier targeted to register P680 billion for 2018.

This pushed the investment promotion agency to set an even more ambitious goal next year as it targets to hit the P1-trillion mark.

“Given the epic surge in investments for 2018, it is but inevitable to aim for another historic milestone—the trillion mark next year,” said BOI Managing Head and Trade Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo.

“We are confident of hitting yet another growth in investment registrations next year with the impending entry of big-ticket projects as concrete fruits of the administration’s investment roadshows,” he added.

BOI Chair and Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez said the manufacturing sector led the investment surge, growing “more than four-fold to P409.3 billion from just P96 billion last year.”

Other strong performers, he said, included transportation and storage, which surged 626 percent to P129.6 billion from just P17.8 billion in 2017.

The water and sewerage sector, he added, grew 1,494 percent to P14.3 billion, while the retail sector reached P8.1 billion (up nearly 200 percent) and the accommodation sector hit P39.9 billion (up 253 percent).

Most of the projects approved this year—or 86 percent —are or will be located in areas outside Metro Manila, according to Rodolfo.

Northern Mindanao, he said, got P228.8 billion worth of investment pledges, 3,063 percent higher than the P7.2 billion registered a year ago. It is also the region with the highest share of the pledges.

Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon), meanwhile, got P185 billion while Central Luzon got P169.3 billion.

The National Capital Region took up the fourth-biggest slice of the pledges with P123.6 billion, or 13.6 percent of the total.