Pinoy investments abroad down 13% to $5.903 B

MANILA, Philippines - Filipinos’ investments in debt and equity securities abroad declined in the first half of 2013 from end-2012, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported yesterday.

In a report, the central bank said residents’ foreign portfolio investments declined 13 percent to $5.903 billion as of June 2013 from $6.787 billion in end-2012.

“The decrease in residents’ holdings of foreign portfolio investments may be attributed to the market reaction on the possible scaling down of the US Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing measures,” the BSP said.

The central bank said residents’ holdings of long-term debt securities declined by 15.9 percent during the period, while holdings of short-term debt securities went down by 2.2 percent.

By type of security, long-term debt papers accounted for the bulk or 98.3 percent of total portfolio investments as of June last year.

Foreign governments accounted for the largest share (43.1 percent) of securities held by Filipinos, the BSP said. This was followed by foreign banks (25.5 percent) and non-financial corporations (20.7 percent).

Non-bank financial corporations (9.8 percent), international organizations (0.7 percent), and foreign central banks (0.2 percent) accounted for the remaining share.

“The US remains as top country-issuer of securities held by residents,” the BSP said.

More than a third (37.2 percent) of the portfolio investments made by Filipinos were on securities issued by the US, while another 14.8 percent were issued by Indonesia.

Other top countries that issued most of the securities Filipinos invested in included Cayman Islands (4.8 percent), United Kingdom (4.5 percent), South Korea (4.4 percent), Germany (four percent), and Hong Kong (3.9 percent).