Pledged capital surged 49% to P227.4B in H1

Committed investments in seven major investment promotion agencies (IPAs) has reached P227.4 billion in the first half, a 48.8-percent increase from a year ago, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported.

Investments pledges in the first half of 2016 have improved from last year’s figure of P186.4 billion.

The growth in investment pledges in the first semester was supported by local investments with approvals surging by 642 percent to P210.8 billion from P28.4 billion during the same period last year.

Investments from local sources accounted for 93 percent of the figure in January to June period.

Likewise, IPAs increased its approvals of foreign investments by 15 percent to P66.6 billion this year from P58 billion a year ago.

Bulk of the investments or about P97.8 billion are intended for projects in electricity, gas, steam, and air conditioning supply sectors.

This is followed by investments in real estate activities with P63.5 billion, and manufacturing with P36.3 billion.

The National Capital Region, Central Luzon, and Calabarzon have remained the largest recipient of investment commitments in the first half.

A total of 113,327 jobs are expected to be generated from the PHP227.4-billion investment approvals in the first six months of this year.

This figure improved by 39.2 percent in terms of job creation as last year’s investment pledges have created some 81,393 jobs.

Majority of these jobs are in the sectors of manufacturing (37,520 jobs), administrative and support service activities (36,433 jobs), real estate activities (13,872 jobs), information and communication (9,834 jobs), and accommodation and food service activities (3,153 jobs).

Among IPAs, agencies under the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) have approved the largest investment commitments.

Approvals made by the Board of Investments shared 67.2 percent or P186.5 billion while the Philippine Economic Zone Authority accounted for 25.2 percent or P70 billion.

Projects registered under the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) during the period amounted to P6.88 billion, Clark Development Corp. (CDC) contributed P6.69 billion, Freeport Area of Bataan with P5.8 billion, BOI-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with P1.3 billion, and Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (Ceza) with P166.3 million.