APPROVED foreign and Filipino investments contracted 14.8 percent in the first semester of 2018, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
In the first semester of 2018, approved investments declined to P299.82 billion in the January-to-May period this year, from P351.87 billion in the same period last year.
Data showed foreign direct investments pledges rose 10 percent to P45.15 billion, while approved Filipino investments contracted 18.1 percent to P254.67 billion.
In the first semester, PSA data also showed the largest decline in approved investments among the seven investment
promotion agencies (IPAs) was observed in the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA).
Data showed that approved investments in SBMA contracted 93.2 percent to P2.77 billion in the first semester of 2018 followed by the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan (Afab) with a contraction of 88.2 percent to P41.8 million; and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) with 55.9 percent to P53.07 billion.
PSA data also showed there were no foreign investments approved in Afab and the Board of Investments (BOI) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Once these investments are realized, the PSA projects that these will create only 78,258 jobs, a 47.8-percent decline from the 149,857 jobs estimated from Filipino and foreign national investments in the first semester of 2017.
The sectors that will post the largest declines in employment generation are Financial and insurance activities with a contraction of 98.6 percent; Information and communication, 75.8 percent; and Professional, scientific and technical activities, 70.1 percent.
The PSA obtained the data from the seven IPAs: the BOI, Clark Development Corp., Peza, SBMA, the Afab,BOI-ARMM and the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority.
