Philippines See Foreign Investment Jumping 100% Next Year

Manila, Philippines (AHN) - The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Philipines central bank, on Thursday announced that it sees foreign direct investment and foreign portfolio investment would expand by 100 percent next year and reach $6.9 billion from this year's $3.1 billion resulting from positive outlook into the Philippine economy.

Diwa Guinigundo, BSP deputy governor said that according to projections made by the country's finance managers, they forecast net foreign direct investment to total $3.6 billion in 2008 and net foreign portfolio investments at $3.3 billion.

Net FDI for 2007 is seen to reach $1.2 billion until the end of the year because of significant offshore investments by a number of companies.

Earlier, the National Economic Development Authority said the country's gross domestic product or GDP, is expected to expand by at least 7.0 percent this year, beating a government target of 6.1 - 6.7 percent growth.

The better-than-expected performance was the result of the rise in government spending and personal consumption as more Filipinos working abroad also increased the amount of their remittances.