Foreign investment transactions in Philippines yield net inflows of 1.4 bln USD in February

MANILA, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Registered investments for February amounted to 1.4 billion U.S. dollars, lower by 31.6 percent compared to the 2.1 billion U.S. dollars recorded for January, the Philippine central bank said on Thursday.

Year-on-year, however, inflows rose by 34.9 percent compared to the 1 billion U.S. dollars noted for the same period a year ago, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said.

The BSP said about 77.4 percent of investments registered during the month were in PSE-listed securities pertaining mainly to banks, holding firms, property companies, food, beverage and tobacco companies, and transportation companies; while 22.4 percent went to peso government securities and the 0.2 percent balance went to other peso debt instruments.

Britain, the United States, Singapore, Luxembourg, and Norway were the top five investor countries for the month, with combined share to total at 67 percent, the BSP said.

The BSP said outflows for the month, which amounted to 1.1 billion U.S. dollars, were lower compared to figures recorded for January 2019, which was 1.3 billion U.S. dollars, and February 2018, which was 1.6 billion U.S. dollars.

The U.S. continued to be the main destination of outflows, receiving 80.3 percent of total remittances.

On the overall, the BSP said transactions for the month resulted in net inflows of 340 million U.S. dollars, which may be attributed to investor optimism arising from the relieving of the international trade tensions and the expectation of boosting the rice supply in the country and thereby temper inflation.