MANILA - The Philippines booked $961 million in net inflows of foreign direct investments in April, down 11.8 percent from the same month a year ago, the central bank said Wednesday.

This brought FDI net inflows to $2.9 billion in the first 4 months of the year, down 14 percent from the same period in 2018, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas data showed.

Part of the reason for the slowdown in investments was the high base of 2018.

The first half of 2018 saw billions of dollars of investments flow into the Philippines, leading to increased expectations of a record-breaking annual performance, following the historic high of over $10 billion in FDI hit in 2017. FDI however slowed in the second half of last year.

This year foreigners favored investments in finance and insurance, real estate, and manufacturing.