New investments up 96% at P370 B - 1

Good morning everyone. Hearing this kind of good news will surely boost the eagerness of investing for your own business. This has referenced to one of the newspaper here in our country.

Despite the global financial crisis, all key indicators in the investments picture by the country’s premier investment generating agencies – the Board of Investments (BoI) and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) – are positive with combined investments in the first nine months this year posting a robust growth of 96 percent to P369.87 billion versus P188.62 billion in the same January-September period last year.

Data obtained by reporters showed the BoI project approvals contributed P275.49 billion or 74 percent of the total investments while PEZA contributed P94.38 billion accounting for the remaining 26 percent.

The approved investments, measured in terms of project cost, represent around 95 percent of the P391 billion combined 2008 investments target of the BoI and PEZA, which is 12 percent growth from the 2007 actual investments haul.

There were also more projects that register in the first nine months than last year with 698 projects approved by both agencies compared to only 560 projects approved in the same period last year.

Once fully operational, these projects are expected to generate 147,705 job opportunities, significantly higher than the 107,851 jobs generated on approved projects in the same period last year.