Sustained optimism in business prospects here pushed up by 16.4 percent to $464 million the amount of foreign direct investments poured into job-generating projects in the country last November.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) data showed that the FDI net inflow in November was the third highest monthly figure so far in 2015, following the $1.519 billion posted in September and $526 million in August.

The BSP attributed the “robust” net inflows in November to “sustained investor confidence in the economy on the back of the country’s sound macroeconomic fundamentals.” The inflows across all FDI components that month surpassed the $399 billion posted a year ago.

In November, net investments in debt instruments—inter-company borrowings between parent-firms overseas and their subsidiaries in the country—climbed 26.6 percent year-on-year to $187 million.

Foreign investments in equity capital registered net inflows of $224 million as the growth in placements to $234 million outpaced the $10 million in withdrawals.

Reinvestments of earnings also rose 7.5 percent to $53 million in November.

The majority of equity capital investments that month came from Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea and the United States.

The bulk of FDIs in November went to the following sectors: information and communication activities; financial and insurance; manufacturing; real estate, and wholesale and retail trade.

As of end-November, however, total FDIs went down 3.4 percent to $5.452 billion from $5.646 billion in 2014.

The year-on-year drop during the first 11 months of 2015 was due to the “9.9-percent decline in net placements in debt instruments to $3 billion compared to $3.3 billion a year ago,” the BSP said.

Also, reinvestment of earnings dropped by 9.7 percent to $691 million.

As of end-November, net inflows of equity capital grew by 13.5 percent as the 25.6-percent growth to $2.6 billion in equity capital placements offset equity capital withdrawals worth $807 million.