Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) increased by 56% in the first 7 months of the financial year 25-2024.
According to State Bank data, FDI during July-January of the financial year 25-2024 was $ 1.523 billion with an increase of $ 548 million or 56%, compared to $ 975 million a year ago.
The growth is impressive, but the volume of foreign direct investment was the lowest in the region, the government is trying to attract foreign investment but could not implement the idea of large foreign investment.
A special Investment Facilitation Council has been established to solve problems and remove all obstacles in the way of foreign investment, but the situation has not changed much.
Foreign direct investment inflows in January were much better than last year as the country received $194 million compared to $132 million in January 2024.
However, investment in the first 7 months of fiscal year 2025 is much better than the previous year’s performance, with the country receiving $2.346 billion in fiscal year 2023-24 while remittances reached $1.5 billion in the first 7 months of fiscal year 2024-25.
In the first 7 months of fiscal year 2025, Chinese investment increased manifold to $633.6 million, compared to $118 million in the same period of the previous fiscal year, with China alone making the difference in the increase in investment.
Other major remittances came from Hong Kong ($154.7 million), Switzerland ($144 million) and the United Kingdom ($148 million).
Economists and analysts cite several reasons for this poor volume of foreign direct investment, but they believe that the external account is unstable, which discourages foreign investors.
