ISLAMABAD: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) recorded an increase of 74.4 percent in Federal Direct Investment (FDI) during first quarter of July-October 2017-18 as compared to last year. During July-October 2018 period, the net FDI inflow into the country was $939.7 million against $538.7 million during corresponding period July-Oct 2017, says a press release.
This increase in the FDI is supported by Chinese ($631.7 million), and Malaysian ($107 million) investment. These two countries contributed to around 78.6 percent in the total net FDI inflow during this quarter (July-Oct).
The other investments are from France ($38 million), UAE ($24 million) and United States of America ($26.6 million). Chinese FDI increased to 213 percent during this fiscal year and touched $631.7 million in first quarter whereas during the same period of last fiscal year it was $201.8 million.
China is investing in several projects under CPEC and the majority of the FDI are focused on power sector followed by construction. Sector-wise analysis depicts that power sector has attracted $422 million (44.9pc), while construction sector also attracted $177 million (18.8pc) in the first four month of current fiscal year followed by financial services ($76.3 million), communications ($69.4 million), trade ($53.2 million) and oil and gas sector ($57.9 million). Experts are seeing good prospects and projecting upward trend of FDI in financial year 2018 as economy appears to be expanding and work on certain electricity generation and infrastructure projects under CPEC remain on track in future as well.
Further, economic managers of the country are also of the view that improvement in FDI will play a pivotal role in providing support to balance of payments, which is heavily under pressure due to growing trade deficit.
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