- 56% of decade’s proposals rejected or inactive
The number of investment proposals submitted to the Board of Investment (BOI) fell by 31% in 2025, ending three consecutive years of recovery, while more than half of all proposals received over the past decade have either been rejected or become inactive, according to data obtained by The Sunday Morning Businesses through a Right to Information (RTI) request.
The BOI received 81 project applications in 2025, down from 117 in 2024. Last year’s figure is less than half the 169 proposals recorded in 2016, the highest annual intake during the 10-year period.
Applications declined steadily after 2016, bottoming out at 50 in 2020 before climbing back to 63 in 2021, 89 in 2022, and 104 in 2023.
Of the 950 proposals received between 2016 and 2025, only 380 are currently listed as approved and active.
A total of 530, or 56%, were either rejected outright or became inactive after approval, through withdrawn approvals, cancelled agreements, ceased implementation, suspended operations, dormancy, or closure.
A further 40 proposals were still awaiting approval as of early May this year.
Attrition has been sharpest among older proposals. Of the 169 applications received in 2016, just 56 remain approved and active. Of the 81 received in 2025, 48 had been approved, 16 had been rejected or made inactive, and 17 remain pending.
The data also points to a persistent gap between approval and execution, with more than 140 approved projects yet to progress beyond the approval stage, against more than 230 that have been implemented.
Approval timelines have shifted unevenly across sectors. Average approval times for manufacturing projects narrowed from 6–12 months during 2020–2023 to 3–6 months in 2024–2025.
In the services and tourism and leisure sectors, approval times fell from 3–6 months to under three months. Approvals for agriculture and utilities projects, however, lengthened from under three months to 3–6 months.
The BOI said that approval times varied by project and may be delayed by clearances required from other line agencies.
The board has set up an Investor Facilitation Centre to improve inter-agency coordination. It has also launched the BOI Gateway digital platform for online submissions and real-time application tracking.