Illustrative image (Source: https://www.philstar.com) Hanoi (VNA) - Speculative funds continued to flee the Philippines in September amid a spate of geopolitical issues which affected the flow of hot money globally.
Data released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) – the central bank – showed that the country’s foreign portfolio investments yielded a net outflow of 231.71 million USD in September, pushing the net outflow for the nine-month period to 1.33 billion USD, nearly 17 times higher than the 74.67 million USD net outflow recorded in the same period last year.
According to the BSP, some of the geopolitical issues affecting the flow of hot money into the country include the ongoing trade tensions between the US and China, attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia that triggered the largest jump in oil prices in decades, further interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve and the impeachment inquiry against US President Donald Trump.
The BSP’s data indicated that hot money inflows jumped by 75 percent to 1.3 billion USD in September from 743.31 million USD in the same month last year.
Of the total inflows, the BSP said more than 80 percent of investments went to securities being traded at the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) especially property developers, holding firms, banks, food, beverage and tobacco companies and transportation providers.
According to the BSP, the top five investor countries during the review period were the UK, the US, Singapore, Malaysia and Luxembourg with a combined share of 72.3 percent.
On the other hand, outflows went up by 29.5 percent to 1.53 billion USD. Of the total withdrawals, about 75 percent went back to the US.
For the nine-month period, hot money inflows went up by 13.8 percent to 13.25 billion USD compared to 11.64 billion USD in the same period last year.
On the other hand, withdrawals jumped by 26.1 percent to 14.85 billion USD from 11.56 billion USD./.
