MANILA, Philippines — Foreign investment pledges approved by the country’s investment promotion agencies fell 37.9 percent in the first quarter of the year, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported yesterday.

The PSA said investment commitments in the first quarter dropped to P14.2 billion from P22.9 billion in the same period last year.

These cover investment commitments cleared by the Board of Investments, Clark Development Corp., Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan, BOI-Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao and Cagayan Economic Zone Authority.

The bulk of foreign investments during the quarter came from Japan, United States and Netherlands.

During the reference period, Japanese firms committed to invest P7.9 billion, accounting for 55.3 percent of the total foreign investment pledges. Companies from US and Netherlands pledged investments valued at P1.5 billion and P878.5 million, respectively.

By industry, manufacturing received 64.1 percent of total investment pledges valued at P9.1 billion.

Administrative and support service activities followed with investment commitments valued at P1.81 billion or 12.7 percent of the total. Real estate activities followed closely with P1.8 billion.

By region, most of the investments would be used to finance projects in CALABARZON amounting to P 7.4 billion or 52 percent. This was followed by the National Capital Region at P 3.2 billion and Northern Mindanao at P1.6 billion.

Meanwhile, the total approved investment pledges by both foreign and Filipino nationals in the first quarter reached P185 billion, up from P121.5 billion in the same period last year.

Investment pledges made by Filipino nationals amounted to P170.8 billion or a commanding 92.3 percent of total commitments.

Total projects of foreign and Filipino investors approved by the seven agencies for the first quarter are expected to generate 33,704 jobs.