This Policy Note revisits the policy objective of the Foreign Investment Act (FIA) and the implementation of the foreign investment negative list (FINL) as a transparency tool in the Philippines. Among others, it finds that foreign investment is restrained by policy design limitations in the FIA itself. It also reveals that the current FINL does not take into account regulatory measures that have cross-cutting implications on all sectors and activities, such as limitations on the citizenship of the board of directors and economic needs test on employment of foreign nationals. With this, the study urges the Philippine government to consider enhancing its transparency for investment by improving the information content of FINL. Specifically, it encourages the executive department to call upon its departments and agencies to come up with a transparency list to supplement and address the deficiencies of the FINL.
