The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said $14.2 billion investments from the pledges generated by foreign trips of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as of 2023 have been actualized.
The DTI in a statement said the investments, representing 20 percent of the total pledges, went into 46 projects which are either operating and/or have completed the process of registering the project with DTI’s investment promotion agencies or have commenced implementation.
The DTI added these projects are in manufacturing (six projects at nearly $5 billion), information technology–business process management or IT-BPM (10 projects at $3 billion), renewable energy (9 projects, $2.84 billion) and the rest in infrastructure, transport and logistics, agriculture, and retail.
Countries with the most number of projects actualized are Japan with 21 and the United States, 13.
As of December 2023, DTI recorded $72.2 billion in investments at different stages, comprising 148 projects.
The remaining 102 projects involving $58 billion pledges are pre-implementation and planning activities.
The duration of the implementation period – or the period when the proponent has spent financial and staff resources to undertake specific, tangible steps for implementing the project – depends on the sector to which a particular project belongs.
While their investment values are modest, projects in IT-BPM sector and light manufacturing are early to operate because they have shorter implementation periods.
While certain investment projects seamlessly progress from commitment to operation such as IT-BPM), others require a more extended implementation period of up to 7 years in the case of offshore wind and major physical infrastructure projects.
