The Board of Investments (BoI) may fall short of hitting the target of P1 trillion in approved investments for this year, an official from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) hinted.
“Hindi ko alam kung mami-meet. Baka hindi. Meron pang mga nasa pipeline (We at the agency are not certain if the P1-trillion target for 2020 will be met. Perhaps not. There are still projects that are in the pipeline),” said Trade Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo in a virtual briefing.
So far, the investment pledges amount to approximately P905 billion.
The majority of investments, he said, came from the infrastructure including toll roads, telco towers and independent power generation.
There were also investments in the transportation sector such as airlines.
“Maganda sana kung maka-P1 trillion.May mga hinihingi pa kasi kaming endorsement from other government agencies pero hindi namin sure kung maihabol (It would be best if we meet the P1-trillion goal. We are asking for some endorsements from other government agencies but it is not certain if we’d be able to secure those before the year ends),” said Rodolfo, who is also BoI’s managing head.
“Should we secure the necessary endorsements, the approved investment pledges will increase to more than P970 billion, still short of the 2020 target),” Rodolfo told reporters.
The complete data will be released on December 28, he added.
Rodolfo’s recent pronouncement was different from what he said in November that the BoI was optimistic about reaching the 2020 target in terms of investment pledges.
“Though this will be slightly lower than the project approvals for 2019, we are still on course [on attaining] the second highest level [of greenlighted investments] in our agency’s history despite the pandemic,” he added.
Investment pledges reached P1.04 trillion in the first 10 months of 2019 and P1.14 trillion for the entire year.
At that time, Rodolfo said the government was pushing for a more proactive, targeted investment promotion strategy in asking foreign investors to relocate to the Philippines or expand their services and products.
In November, the “Make It Happen in the Philippines” international investments promotion campaign was launched, which the BoI initiated with the assistance of the United Kingdom government, that would hopefully help attract more investments to the country.
Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez had said the campaign’s tagline served as a promise that the Philippines “will build back better.”