Strong foreign direct investment growth for M'sia, but less than neighbours

Unctad chief of the investment trends section Dr Masataka Fujita, Azman and Gyles-McDonnough at the launch of the WIR 2014 report.

KUALA LUMPUR: Despite seeing the strongest growth in foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows among Asean countries last year, Malaysia continued to lag behind neighbouring countries in terms of total receipts.

Malaysia’s net FDI inflows grew by an impressive 22.2% to US$12.3bil (RM39.6bil) in 2013, compared with US$10.1bil in the preceding year, according to the World Investment Report (WIR) 2014 published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad).