BSP-registered foreign portfolio investments yield net inflows in November 2021

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)-registered foreign portfolio investments (FPIs)^[i] in November 2021 yielded net inflows of US$110 million resulting from the US$1.3 billion gross inflows and US$1.2 billion gross outflows for the month.

This is a reversal from the net outflows of US$221 million recorded in October 2021.

The US$1.3 billion registered investments for November 2021 reflected an increase of 35.3 percent (or by US$335 million) compared to the US$950 million recorded in October 2021.

Majority of investments registered (or 94.1 percent) were in PSE-listed securities (investments mainly in holding firms, information technology, food, beverage and tobacco, banks and property) while the remaining 5.9 percent went to investments in Peso government securities.

The United Kingdom, United States (US), Luxembourg, Hong Kong and Singapore were the top five (5) investor countries for the month with combined share to total at 73.2 percent.

The US$1.175 billion gross outflows for the month were slightly higher by 0.4 percent (or by US$4 million) than the US$1.171 billion recorded in October 2021.  The US received 62.6 percent of total outflows.

Year-on-year, registered investments declined by 18.0 percent (or by US$281 million) from the US$1.6 billion recorded in November 2020.

Similarly, gross outflows were lower by 12.3 percent (or by US$164 million) than the outflows recorded a year ago (US$1.3 billion). It may be noted that the US$110 million net inflows were lower by 51.7 percent (or by US$117 million) compared to the US$227 million net inflows recorded for the same period a year ago.

Transactions for BSP-registered FPIs from 1 January to 30 November 2021 yielded net outflows of US$570 million, lower than the US$3.7 billion net outflows noted for the same period last year (1 January to 30 November 2020).

Registration of inward foreign investments with the BSP is optional under the rules on foreign exchange transactions.

It is required only if the investor or its representative will purchase 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 its investment but the foreign exchange will have to be sourced outside the banking system.

[i] Refer to inward foreign investments in PSE-listed securities (PSE); Peso-denominated government securities (GS); Peso time deposits with banks with minimum tenor of 90 days; other Peso debt instruments; unit investment trust funds; and other portfolio investments such as Exchange Traded Funds and Philippine Depositary Receipts