FDI net inflow breaches $7B, beats BSP ’25 goal
Net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into the Philippines fell more modestly last November, even as the economy navigated a host of domestic and global headwinds, pushing year-to-date gains past the central bank’s projection for 2025.
Latest data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed FDI inflows outpaced outflows by $897 million for the month, down by 0.3 percent from a year earlier.
Even so, that was a milder decline compared to the 39.8-percent annual contraction in October.
Through November, the Philippines posted a net FDI gain of $7.1 billion, down 22 percent from the same period in 2024.
Despite the drop, the total surpassed the central bank’s $7-billion projection for 2025, providing a boost to the country’s external position.
Unlike foreign portfolio investments, which can vanish at the first sign of trouble, FDI tends to represent longer-term commitments that create jobs and support industrial growth. The government has been working both to attract new investment and retain those already in the country.
The latest figures reflected investor caution as the Philippine economy confronted challenges on multiple fronts. Gross domestic product expanded just 3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025—the slowest pace in more than 14 years outside the pandemic.
The weak outturn dragged the 2025 growth to 4.4 percent, missing the government’s 5.5-percent to 6.5-percent target. Officials and analysts pointed to a mix of climate-related disruptions and the Marcos administration’s sweeping anticorruption drive, which curbed government spending and weighed on business and consumer confidence.
Those domestic strains were compounded by lingering global trade uncertainty after reciprocal tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump of the United States disrupted trade flows and fueled sharp volatility in financial markets worldwide last year.
Robert Dan Roces, group economist at SM Investments, said the November FDI results showed “stabilization after a softer stretch.”
“Some delayed equity placements and reinvested earnings likely came through, which tells you investors are pacing commitments, not exiting,” Roces said. “The near flat year-on-year print suggests sentiment is holding, though still selective.”
A closer look at the central bank’s report showed that equity capital investments—a gauge of new FDI—doubled to $142 million in November, beating capital withdrawals, which plunged 44 percent to $20 million. The result was a net equity capital inflow of $122 million, over three times larger than the year-earlier figure.
