MANILA, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' registered foreign portfolio investments for 2018 amounted to 16.03 billion U.S. dollars, slightly lower by 38 million U.S. dollars or 0.2 percent than the 16.07 billion U.S. dollars recorded in 2017, the country's central bank said on Thursday.

On a monthly basis, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said the highest gross inflows were recorded in March which hit 2.5 billion U.S. dollars while the lowest was noted in September when it only reached 743 million U.S. dollars.

On a quarterly basis, the BSP said the largest inflows were noted in the first quarter at 5.1 billion U.S. dollars, representing 32.0 percent of the total for the year.

The BSP said outflows for the year amounting to 14.8 billion U.S. dollars reflected an 8.8 percent decline compared to 16.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2017. About 96.8 percent of total outflows represented capital repatriation with the remaining 3.2 percent pertaining to earnings, the BSP said.

The BSP said transactions for 2018 yielded net inflows of 1.2 billion U.S. dollars compared to the 195 million U.S. dollars net outflows for the same period last year.