Confirmed investments from Marcos trips hit $19B

DTI: Realized investments from Marcos trips hit $19B

Story by Janine Alexis Miguel 
Manila Times
25 June 2024

ACTUALIZED investments from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s foreign trips since he took office in 2022 have hit $19 billion — around P1.1 trillion — as of this month, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) claimed on Monday.

This involves 65 projects registered with the Board of Investments (BoI) and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) that are in the final stages of being registered or are already operating.

The DTI said that 12 projects had reached category six, meaning these were registered and currently operating and were worth $328 million (P19.3 billion).

Twenty-one projects amounting to $1.6 billion (P94 billion), meanwhile, were said to be in category five: registered businesses that have yet to start operations.

The majority of actualized projects — 32 worth some $17 billion (P999 billion) — are in category four, which means that they are being registered with various investment promotion agencies.

The actualized investments account for over 31 percent of the $61.3 billion (P3.6 trillion) in investment pledges secured from the President's foreign trips, the DTI said.

Marcos' trips, which included visits to key allies and emerging markets, were aimed at strengthening economic ties and attracting foreign direct investments. The pledges secured spanned industries including manufacturing, infrastructure, information technology and business process management (IT-BPM), and renewable energy.

In line with this, Trade Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo said the government was "on track" to achieving this year's investment approval target of P1.5 trillion.

As of end-May, the BoI had approved investments totaling P640.22 billion, a result said to be the highest five-month tally in the agency's 57-year history.

The investment pledges, which were 14 percent higher than the P562.90 billion recorded a year earlier, were overwhelmingly from Filipino investors and mostly comprised renewable energy and power projects.

Domestic investments amounted to P525.85 billion, while foreign investments totaled P114.37 billion. The projects are expected to create 13,871 jobs.