FDI drops by 30pc in Q1’23

Business Report :
Net foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow in Bangladesh dropped down by 30% in the first quarter of this calendar year.
Latest statistics available with the Bangladesh Bank showed that in the January-March period of 2023, Bangladesh received net inflow of overseas investment equivalent to $626.47 million, down 29.49% from $888.48 million recorded in the same period a year ago.

Compared with the immediate-past quarter, the figure also went down 10.99% from $703.83 million recorded in the last quarter (October-December period of 2022) of the previous calendar year, according to the central bank data.

Net FDI inflows are the value of inward direct investments made by non-resident investors, including reinvested earnings and intra-company loans.
This excludes the amount that goes out of a country through the repatriation of capital and repayment of loans.
Non-EPZ area received the highest flow of $541.49 million while textiles and wearing becomes top foreign investment-earning sector pooling $ 143.81 million followed by banking ($93.43 million), telecommunications ($71.98 million), gas and petroleum ($55.28 million) and trading ($ 34.46 million).

Reinvested earnings plummeted 13.58% while the inter-company loans went up 272.72% in Q1 of this calendar year in year-on-year terms.
The highest volume of the net overseas investment came from Malta, a country previously not seen in the list of major FDI-sending countries.
According to the BB data, the gross volume of forex reserves remained on a slide, amounting to $29.85 billion as of July 19, 2023 by official count, but the net volume of reserves under the IMF’s BPM6 manual is equivalent to $23.45 billion.