Staff Reporter :
The country lost the flow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by about 6.22 percent, $933.09 million, in the first half of 2013 due to political unrest.
Bangladesh received $995.02 million in foreign investment during the January-June period of 2012, according to a data of the Board of Investment (BoI)
But BoI has not yet disclosed the amount of real FDI received in the second half of 2013 as the central bank is yet account it through extensive survey, said Nabhash Chandra Mandal, Executive Member of BoI.
“After accounting the FDI received in the second half of 2013, it will be the highest recorded figure for Bangladesh,” BoI said in a statement on Tuesday.
Zahid Hussain, lead economist of the World Bank in Dhaka, said that over $900 million in FDI is more than “one could expect given the ground situation.” Bangladesh received $1.292 billion in FDI in 2012 surpassing $1.136 billion in 2011.
Nabhash Mandal also hoped that FDI flow could surpass $1.5 billion in 2013. Official figures showed that investors made commitments to invest Tk 13,826 crore in 269 projects in October-December, 2013.
Investment proposals from foreign investors or joint ventures dropped in the last quarter of 2013. Only six whole foreign-owned investment proposals and 15 joint venture proposals were registered at an investment value of Tk 787.20 crore. It was Tk 16,070 crore in July-September.
The number of projects registered with BoI, however, fell by more than a third or 34.61 percent last year compared to 2012.
Local entrepreneurs proposed to invest Tk 42,488 crore in 2013 in 1,197 projects, which is 15.15 percent lower in monetary value than in 2012, when they had proposed to invest Tk 50,078 crore in 1,655 projects.
On the other hand, foreign investors and joint ventures registered to set up 181 projects worth $2.621 billion in 2013, up 0.40 percent from 2012, when they had committed to invest $2.611 billion.
