Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Alfredo Pascual reported on Monday US19 billion worth of projects are in its investment promotion agencies (IPAs) that materialized from President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s official foreign trips.

Pascual told reporters in a briefing in Makati City that these investments came from 65 projects – of which, 12 are already operating; 21 have registered with the Board of Investments (BOI) and Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA); and 32 are processing their registration with DTI’s IPAs.

“USD19 billion of the investments have already cleared,” he said in mixed English and Filipino.

This is bigger than the USD14 billion actualized projects reported by DTI last February.

Pascual said the 12 projects that are currently operating had total investments of USD327 million.

Those 21 projects that got BOI and PEZA approvals are investing a total of USD 1.6 billion, while the 32 projects that have ongoing registration with IPAs have investments amounting to USD17 billion.

In a Viber message to trade reporters, DTI Undersecretary Jose Edgardo Sunico said the agency has a total of 231 investments in the pipeline as of June 2024, which include those projects under public-private partnership (PPP).

“As of June 2024, monitoring shows 201 projects totaling USD61 billion. Including PPP projects, the total rises to 231 projects amounting to USD76.6 billion, higher than the previous report,” Sunico said.

In the previous report, DTI logged 148 investment leads amounting to USD72.2 billion as of December 2023. (PNA)