Power sector investments pulled last year’s total investments to hit P466 billion, a 29.33 percent growth from 2012’s P360.34 billion figure.
Investments in electricity, gas, steam and airconditioning supply projects amounted to P331.1 billion or 71.05 percent share of the total investments.
Despite the fewer number of registered projects at the Board of Investors (BOI), investments still grew, said Corazon Dichiosa, BOI executive director for industry development.
According to the BOI, only 282 projects registered last year compared to 371 projects in 2012. Most of these projects require higher funds but were not so labor intensive as employment generated last year decreased by 15.68 percent with only 38,100 as compared to 2012 where 45,184 got jobs from that year’s investments.
Other sectors that contributed to the country’s investments last year included transportation and storage with P67.65 billion followed by real estate projects with P42.1 billion.
Projects in the manufacturing sector were valued at P15.8 billion. These were mostly on petroleum products, food products, basic chemicals and pharmaceutical products.
Accommodations and food services also had P4.8 billion in investments last year.
“We noted new projects last year including arts, entertainment and recreation with projects amounting to P470.2 milllion. In 2012, we did not have any of these projects registered with BOI,” Dichiosa said.
While majority of the registered investments came from local companies with P345.39 billion or 74.1 percent, Dichiosa said investments from foreign companies also grew by 20.64 percent with P120.64 billion last year.
The highest investments came from the British Virgin Islands group with P61.51 billion, a share of 51 percent and a growth of 98.05 percent from only P62.67 million in 2012.
Second on the list is the United States with P41.76 billion followed by Netherlands with P5.98 billion.
South Korean poured in P2.25 billion followed by Australia with P1.8 billion.
Region 3 got most number of investments registered with BOI last year amounting to P193.7 billion, which is a 198.21 percent growth from only P64.95 billion in 2012.
Region 4 also registered P89.13 billion in investments followed by Region 10 with P54.5 billion, Region 11 P42.38 billion and NCR with P36.84 billion.
Central Visayas ranked sixth in the list with only P10.01 billion last year which is a drop of P78.61 billion in 2012.
BOI Central Visayas officer-in-charge Philip T. Torres said most of these investments were into power plant and mass housing projects.
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