Indonesia attracts fourth highest FDI levels in East, Southeast Asia | Sector data
(Insider Stories) - Indonesia ranked the fourth of the top five countries after China, Hong Kong and Singapore as the most Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in East and Southeast Asian region in 2012, according to World Investment Report compiled by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Indonesia received a total of US$22.55 billion of FDI in 2012.
The UNCTAD report that FDI inflow in Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Vietnam continued to grow last year driven by the wish of investors to reduce costs for labor-intensive manufacturing, harvest mineral resources and participate in infrastructure projects.
It was seen China’s investment in infrastructure projects in Indonesia and Lao People’s Democratic Republic that provided new dynamism to intraregional FDI in infrastructure. The ASEAN countries saw a 2 percent increase of overall FDI inflow last year with Singapore having the largest part of 1.3 percent increase, US$57 billion, the report said.
In global term, the UNCTAD learned that global FDI inflow fell by 18 percent to 1.35 trillion U.S. dollars last year. Recovery to more vigorous investment levels will take longer than expected due to global economic fragility and policy uncertainty.
Developing countries apparently took the lead in attempting FDI last year as they, for the first time, took more FDI than developed countries. It accounted for 52 percent of global FDI inflows, the report said.
