Foreign Portfolio Investments Reach $2B in May

Manila—(PHStocks)—Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)—Registered foreign portfolio investments for May 2014 reached $2 billion, approximating last year’s level; compared to April 2014, there was a 5 percent improvement in inflows. Outflows for the month declined year-on-year from $2.6 billion to $1.4 billion (or by 46.3 percent); a decline of 8.1 percent was also noted compared to the April 2014 figure of $1.5 billion. On the overall, net inflows of $545 million were realized, which is an improvement from last month’s net inflows ($325 million) and the net outflows last year ($641 million).

About 75.2 percent of the investments were in PSE-listed securities (property companies; banks; holding firms; food, beverage and tobacco firms; and telecommunication companies); 20.7 percent in Peso government securities; and the rest (or 4.1 percent) in Peso Time Deposits.

The United Kingdom, Singapore, the United States, Hong Kong, and Luxembourg were the top five (5) investor countries for the month with combined share to total of 78.1 percent. The United States continued to be the main destination of outflows, receiving 91.6 percent of total.

Registration of inward foreign investments with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is voluntary under the liberalized rules on foreign exchange transactions.  The issuance of a BSP registration document entitles the investor or his representative to buy foreign exchange from authorized agent banks and/or their subsidiary/affiliate foreign exchange corporations for repatriation of capital and remittance of earnings that accrue on the registered investment.  Without such registration, the foreign investor can still repatriate capital and remit earnings on his investment but the foreign exchange will have to be sourced outside the banking system.