Philippines Executive Order No. 113 — 13th Regular Foreign Investment Negative List

Mechanism

The Foreign Investment Negative List is the Philippines' statutory instrument under Republic Act No. 7042 (Foreign Investments Act of 1991, as amended) that codifies the sectors where foreign equity is prohibited or limited. The President is mandated to issue an updated FINL every two years; EO 113 is the 13th edition, four years after the 12th (EO 175, August 2022).

List A (constitutional / statutory restrictions): Natural resource exploration, development, and utilisation — including large-scale metallic mining of nickel, copper, chromite, and gold — remains capped at 40% foreign equity under Section 2, Article XII of the 1987 Constitution. Small-scale mining is reserved 100% for Filipino nationals. These limits cannot be changed by executive order and require constitutional amendment.

List B (national-security / public-interest restrictions): Sectors under List B are administratively adjustable. EO 113 removes key public services (telecommunications, airlines, domestic shipping, railways, expressways) from List B following the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling under RA 11659, reclassifying them as non-utilities open to 100% FEI. Retail trade thresholds are also updated per RA 11595, raising the minimum paid-in capital for qualifying foreign retail entrants.

Integration of recent legislative reforms: EO 113 formally incorporates changes from three statutes enacted since the 12th FINL: RA 11647 (2022 FIA amendments lowering minimum FEI requirements for domestic market enterprises), RA 11595 (Retail Trade Liberalisation 2021 amendments), and RA 11659 (Public Service Act 2022 — redefining "public utility" narrowly to transmission, distribution, petroleum pipelines, water pipelines, ports, and public utility vehicles).

Downstream implications for mining sector

• The 40% FEI cap on large-scale mining is unchanged and reflects a constitutional constraint, not a policy choice by this EO. Foreign-invested mining companies (including JVs with Nickel Asia, OceanaGold's PH operations, and Japanese/Korean smelter offtake arrangements) must continue to structure projects with Filipino majority ownership.
• The 0% cap on small-scale mining (which covers a significant share of artisanal gold and chromite production in Mindanao and Palawan) means foreign capital cannot participate in small-scale extraction even indirectly.
• The EO does not modify the 2025 enhanced fiscal regime for mining (RA 12253) or the 2024 SEIAC semiconductor advisory architecture — those are governed by separate statutes.
• The formal codification of RA 11659 liberalisations may attract new FEI into telecom and logistics, which could indirectly improve the infrastructure serving mining operations (port capacity, power grid).

Open questions

• Whether the next FINL (14th, due ~2028) will revisit the constitutional mining cap via a proposed Charter Change (CHA-CHA) process being discussed in Congress.
• Whether the List B service-sector liberalisations attract sufficient FEI to affect the broader investment climate in mining-adjacent logistics and energy.