BOI, PEZA report big drop in investments

Investors continue to shy away from the country based on investment figures released yesterday by the Board of Investments (BOI) and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA).

Investments registered with the BOI plunged by nearly 65 percent to P11.81 billion in the first five months of the year from P33.04 billion in the same period last year.

Despite the drop in BOI-registered investments, the board said these inflows were still able to create additional jobs for Filipino workers.

Total employment generated from January to May this year reached 14,963, an improvement of 10.27 percent over the comparable period last year with employment generation of 13,569.

The decline in investments, was more moderate in special economic zones.

From January to May this year, investments registered with the PEZA amounted to only P14.8 billion, a drop of 20.43 percent from the P18.6 billion that came in the same period last year.

The top two projects approved by the BOI were the P1.347-billion project of the Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Corp. and the P382-million project of Lapanday Diversified Product Corp.

The top PEZA locators, on the other hand, were the Coral Bay Nickel Corp. with an investment of P8.72 billion; Philippine Samsung Electronics Corp., with P428.4 million; and Shin-Etsu Magnetics Philippines Inc. with an investment of P177 million.

While the BOI claims that its new investments managed to create more jobs, the PEZA investments did not translate to more employment opportunities.