THE Philippines booked $236 million in outflows of foreign portfolio investments in March, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BEP) said yesterday.
The BSP said transactions on foreign investments registered with the central bank, through authorized agent banks showed $1.6 billion gross outflows and $1.4 billion gross inflows for the month.
These investments are sometimes referred to as hot money because of the ease with which they can be brought in and out of an economy.
The BSP said $1.4 billion registered investments in March were lower by $140 million, or 9.1 percent, compared to February 2024.
Most of the investments, or 56.7 percent, were in PSE-listed securities, while the remaining 43.3 percent were in peso government securities.
“Investments for the month mostly came from the United Kingdom, Singapore, United States (US), Switzerland, and Luxembourg.
The $1.6 billion gross outflows for the month were higher by $785 million, or by 91.4 percent, compared to the gross outflows recorded for February 2024.
Despite the outflows in March, there was still a net inflow of $377 million in the first quarter, which was a turnaround compared to the $328 million net outflows noted for the same period last year, the BSP said. (ABS-CBN News)
