BOI raises ’24 investment approval target to P1.6T

The Board of Investments (BOI) has raised its target investment approvals this year to P1.6 trillion from P1.5 trillion, drawing optimism from the upward trend in the volume of foreign direct investments coming to the Philippines.

“Considering the overall numbers are up 18 percent [in] January to April, and considering the pipeline, let’s just say we are thinking of adjusting the upper limit to P1.6 trillion,” Ceferino Rodolfo, BOI managing head, told reporters on the sidelines of the Tatak Pinoy Forum at the Philippine International Convention Center.

Back in January, the BOI’s parent agency, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), said that they expect approvals to range from P1.1 trillion to P1.5 trillion in 2024.

This is after coming from last year’s actual posting of P1.26 trillion, the highest in the BOI’s 56-year history.

The bulk of the investments recorded last year were in the renewable energy sector, with the trend falling in line with the government’s road map for renewables to have a 35 percent share in the country’s power generation mix by 2030.

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Today, most of the Philippines’ power plants are coal-fired and diesel-fed, tying the local cost of electricity to the volatile global market prices of coal and oil.

Meanwhile, investment approvals by the DTI’s lead investment promotions body reached P729 billion in 2022, P655 billion in 2021, P1.02 trillion in 2020, and P1.14 trillion in 2019.