Over P600 billion projects approved in 4 months – BOI

MANILA, Philippines — Investments approved by the Board of Investments (BOI) have reached more than P600  billion in the first four months of the year.

In a press briefing, BOI director Sandra Marie Recolizado said P607.22 billion worth of investments have been approved by the investment promotion agency for the January to April 17 period this year.

Compared with the P527.24 billion worth of investment approvals in the January to April period last year, she said the total investments approved so far for this year increased by 15 percent.

She said this year’s approved investments are for 117 projects and are mostly from domestic investors.

In particular, P494.37 billion of the total approved investments for this year are from domestic sources.

Trade Secretary and BOI chairman Alfredo Pascual said it is important to have local firms invest within the country as they also play a role in encouraging foreign firms to consider the Philippines for their business expansion.

“What we really want to encourage in the Philippines is for domestic investors to commit their capital to projects in the Philippines rather than bringing out the money, their capital outside the Philippines,” he said.

He said foreign investors are looking at whether local firms are investing within the country.

In terms of sectors, Recolizado said the majority of the approved projects this year are in renewable energy.

“The biggest project that we have approved is the Ahunan power project,” she said, noting the project was cleared by the BOI just last week.

Located in Laguna, Ahunan Power Inc.’s  hydropower resource and pumped storage hydroelectric power project has a project cost of P296.98 billion.

Ahunan Power is a wholly owned subsidiary of tycoon Enrique Razon Jr.’s Prime Infrastructure Capital Inc.

Recolizado said the second largest project approved by the BOI is the P83.70 billion wind energy project of Ivisan Windkraft Corp., which is 75 percent Singaporean-owned.

Ivisan Windkraft’s wind energy project will be located offshore of Cavite.