THE Board of Investments (BoI) will likely miss its 2022 investment target of P1 trillion with approvals still short at P729 billion as of December 15.
Officials, however, said this year's performance would nevertheless be better year on year as the latest investment tally was about 11 percent higher than 2021's P655 billion.
Despite the lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and a global drop in investments due to the Russia-Ukraine war, “the 2022 BoI approval levels clearly indicate that… investors continue to have strong confidence in the Philippine economy,” Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual told reporters.
Ceferino Rodolfo, BoI vice chairman and managing head, said projected employment generation had also surged by 453 percent to 260,000 this year from around 47,000 in 2021.
Singapore, at 57 percent, was said to be the top source of approved investments. Following were Japan (22 percent), the United Kingdom (7 percent), the United States (3 percent), and the Virgin Islands and South Korea (2 percent each).
Rodolfo said that while the BoI-registered projects were strategic, capital-intensive and not necessarily labor intensive, their impact on the country's competitiveness would generate additional investments, economic activity and employment.
“[W]e have to highlight the composition of the approved projects,” he added, pointing out that many involved renewable energy (RE), data centers, telco towers and electric vehicles (EVs).
The power sector, particularly renewable energy, was said to have contributed the highest increase in approved investments at 56 percent. These include P52.3 billion worth of EV-related projects such as charging stations, leasing and the operation of a transportation network.
Pascual, meanwhile, said that trade missions and presidential visits abroad had “generated strong, tangible interest, particularly in the area of off-shore wind power generation projects.”
“Investors welcomed the strong political will of the administration to push for RE, especially with the recent amendment by the DoE (Department of Energy) of the Renewable Energy Act IRR (implementing rules and regulations) to now allow for 100-percent foreign equity ownership of solar, wind and tidal power projects,” he added.
RE investments are of critical strategic importance, Pascual continued, “as we position the country as the regional hub for innovation and sustainability.”
Also contributing to total approved investments was the information and communication sector, specifically data centers and telco towers, with a 28-percent share.
The rest involved information technology and business process outsourcing, manufacturing, mass housing, and transportation and storage, including logistics/cold chain facilities.
“Moving forward, as directed by the chair[man] and secretary, we are targeting P1-trillion investments for 2023,” Rodolfo said.
“We have a healthy pipeline of strong leads, including those generated and further confirmed through investment missions by the secretary and through the presidential visits by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.,” he added.
