PHILIPPINE economic managers recently wooed investors at the sidelines of an International Monetary Fund (IMF)-World Bank (WB) event in Indonesia, in an effort to bring more foreign direct investments (FDI) into the country.
The country’s Investor Relations Office (IRO) said two of the country’s top economic officials—Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Deputy Governor Diwa C. Guinigundo and Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno—strengthened ties with international investors in a series of roundtable meetings on the sidelines of the 2018 IMF-WB Annual Meetings in Bali Nusa Dua, Indonesia.
The IRO said closed-door presentations were held during the week to convince potential investors that the Philippines remains to be one of the best-performing economies
in the region.
Salient points discussed included the Philippines’s sound economic management and its advantageous young population in an increasingly aging world, the IRO said.
“The briefing sessions provided an opportunity to update international investors on the progress of the Philippines’s $180-billion ‘Build, Build, Build’ initiative. The once-in-a-lifetime nation-building program has gained considerable momentum over the last year, with 44 of the 75 largest projects already at the implementation phase, while 24 are at the development stage,” the IRO said in a statement.
The economic managers also assured that monetary and nonmonetary measures being taken to temper inflation. Guinigundo also reiterated that the BSP will “continue to sustain its vigilance with a strong tightening bias while maintaining a data-dependent approach.”
“The September data showed that core inflation had declined slightly, demonstrating that the BSP’s decisive monetary policy decisions combined with a range of nonmonetary actions were starting to have their desired effect,” Guinigundo was quoted to have said.
“Inflationary pressures in the Philippines will temper over the coming year and return within the target band of 2 percent to 4 percent by 2019,” Diokno said.
Foreign investors were seen to be eager to put their money in the Philippine economy in hopes for long-term economic gains at the start of 2018’s second half, latest data from the BSP showed.
Just last week, the Central Bank reported a “significant rise” in the country’s FDI inflows, from $344 million in July last year to an almost threefold rise to $914 million this year.
FDI is the type of investment that is often more coveted, as it stays longer in the economy and creates job opportunities for locals. It is also not easily pulled out of the market unlike its shorter-term counterpart, the foreign portfolio investments.