Foreign investment pledges approved by Philippine investment promotion agencies more than doubled in the third quarter, rising 125.3% from a year earlier to P166.03 billion, according to preliminary Philippine Statistics Authority data reported by BusinessWorld. Taiwanese investors supplied P76.27 billion of that, or 46%.

The jump gives Manila a rare piece of good economic news. Growth has slowed and inflation reached 7.8% in October, leaving the central bank to weigh high prices against weak output. For investors in Asian manufacturing and power, the figures show where capital is still heading: factories and electricity projects outside Metro Manila, with much of the money coming from Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea.

Pledges are approvals, not money spent. Projects registered with agencies such as the Board of Investments (BOI) and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) can take years to reach construction, and some never do. The data are still the most timely gauge of foreign interest that the government publishes.

Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea lead the Philippine pledges

Quarter on quarter, foreign commitments rose 43.57% from P115.64 billion in April to June, BusinessWorld reported. For the first nine months, foreign approvals climbed 97.7% to P336.45 billion from P170.17 billion a year earlier.

After Taiwan, the largest sources in the third quarter were Singapore at P40.48 billion, South Korea at P29.48 billion, the Netherlands at P3.712 billion and Japan at P3.7 billion. Together, those five accounted for about 92% of the quarter's foreign total.

Manufacturing took P86.16 billion, or 51.89% of foreign pledges. Electricity, gas, steam and air-conditioning projects followed with P52.61 billion, reflecting the flow of capital into power generation.

Only six of the 16 investment promotion agencies approved projects with foreign interest in the period. PEZA approved P87.55 billion, or 52.73% of the total, and the BOI P76.58 billion, or 46.12%. The rest came from small amounts at the Philippine Veterans Investment Development Corp. Industrial Authority, the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority and Clark Development Corp.

By location, Central Luzon drew P76.94 billion, or 46.34%, followed by Calabarzon south of Manila with P33 billion and the Cordillera Administrative Region with P28.2 billion.

Including Filipino investors, total approved investments reached P628.19 billion in the quarter, up 82.7% from P343.81 billion. The jobs picture was flatter. The PSA said the approved projects are expected to create 27,799 jobs, 0.2% fewer than the 27,843 projected a year earlier, with 13,805 tied to projects with foreign interest. That gap suggests the growth is concentrated in capital-heavy projects such as power plants rather than labor-intensive assembly.

Diana Rueda, an economics professor at the University of Asia & the Pacific, told BusinessWorld that approvals may hold up, though geopolitical tensions, energy costs and global financing conditions could delay new commitments. Jonathan Ravelas, a senior adviser at Reyes Tacandong & Co., said the country needs to lower the cost of doing business to keep investors committed, the newspaper reported.

BOI and PEZA approvals reach P1.4 trillion

The agency-level numbers released separately by the government were larger still. Combined approvals at the BOI, PEZA and the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) reached P1.4 trillion, up 39% from P1.06 trillion a year earlier, according to a joint statement by the departments of Finance and Trade and Industry reported by GMA News. GMA described the total as covering January to September, while BusinessWorld reported that officials at a Thursday briefing presented it as the 10-month figure.

The BOI accounted for P942.9 billion, up 22.3% from P770.7 billion. PEZA approvals rose 76.6% to P309.6 billion, and the BCDA's more than doubled, up 142.5% to P145.46 billion from P59.96 billion, GMA reported.

Finance Secretary Frederick Go said the country "continues to be received very warmly by the global investor market," according to BusinessWorld. Trade Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo said the BOI had reached 94% of its P1 trillion target for 2026 and expects to pass it by year-end, with a pipeline of about P500 billion in renewable energy, manufacturing and information technology projects. Renewable energy made up 79% of the BOI's approvals this year, he said.

Leadership change at PEZA

The investment figures arrived during a change at the top of the economic zone authority. Tereso Panga confirmed on Friday that he is leaving as PEZA director general, GMA News reported, and is being replaced by Joshua Bingcang. Panga said PEZA had approved a record P315.5 billion in investments as of Nov. 10, beating the previous high of P311.9 billion set in 2012.

Bingcang previously led the BCDA, GMA News reported, whose approvals grew fastest among the three agencies this year. The next test of whether pledges turn into spending will come in the central bank's balance of payments data, which track actual foreign direct investment inflows, and in the BOI's year-end tally against its P1 trillion goal.