THE Board of Invest-ments (BOI) said it had generated P414 billion worth of investments in January, or more than 40 percent of its P1-trillion investments target for 2023.
“These are the ones that registered with our Board of Investments for the first month of this year, actually first one month and nine days, because the last meeting of BOI’s Board of Governors was last February 9—we have already reached P414 billion,” BOI Managing Head Ceferino S. Rodolfo declared, partly in Filipino, at a news forum at the weekend.
“So this means, [of] our P1-trillion target, we have already hit more than 40 percent of that. And if you compare our registered investment project total with last year, we have already reached close to 60 percent,” the BOI managing head added.
Rodolfo attributed a “big part” of the BOI’s investment figures for January to the “strong efforts of the President to promote the Philippines.”
He also noted that President Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr.’s state visits “really created a pipeline of strong interest from investors,” adding that such interest already translates to “registered” investments and not those who expressed intent to invest through a letter of intent (LOI).
Meanwhile, Rodolfo also expressed confidence that the BOI is up for the challenge should Trade Secretary Alfredo E. Pascual, who also chairs BOI, decide to increase the P1-trillion investments target for 2023.
“That is good news for everyone. But we will not stop there. My only worry now is Sec. Fred might raise the target. And we are very much willing because we can see that the pipeline which the President generated is only the tip of the iceberg from the second half of last year— those who have invested and those who have registered with the BOI,” Rodolfo said.
In 2022, the BOI recorded P729 billion of investment approvals, an increase of 11 percent compared to the P655 billion recorded in 2021.
While the BOI managing head did not elaborate on the source of investments and the breakdown of sectors for the P414-billion investments generated in January 2023, it is worth noting that since assuming the presidency in July 2022, Marcos had traveled to Indonesia, Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand, United States, Belgium, China, and Switzerland, to attend the 2023 World Economic Forum (WEF).
Last year, the BOI said growth drivers of investments were Renewable Energy, with 56-percent share in the total investments recorded. This was followed by Information and Communication, particularly in data centers and telecommunications towers, with 28 percent.
According to the attached agency of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), other sectors that contributed to the investment approvals last year were the IT and Business Process Management (IT-BPM), manufacturing, mass housing, and transportation sectors which includes storage including logistics and cold chain facilities.
As to the source of investments in 2022, BOI said 57 percent came from Singapore, 22 percent from Japan, 7 percent from the United Kingdom, 3 percent from the United States, 2 percent from Virgin Islands, and 2 percent from South Korea.