Due to Money from China
The Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy announced on April 4 that the total reported foreign direct investments (FDI) reached US$4.93 billion in the first quarter of this year, up 28.1% from a year ago. The amount is the second-largest Q1 amount in history. Still, the investment that was actually made was US$2.91 billion, down 2.9% from a year earlier.
The FDI reported from the EU increased 114% year on year to US$1.87 billion and the actual investment from the region fell 2.9% to US$1.1 billion. A large equity investment of more than US$100 million was made in semiconductor material manufacturers and autonomous vehicle parts suppliers.
When it comes to China, the amounts were US$1.05 billion and US$22 million, up 541.5% and down 47.8%, respectively. Real estate investment totaled US$800 million with an increase of 10,691% and large investments were made in the semiconductor, electronic component and photovoltaic industries.
The amounts from the United States were US$740 million (up 102.3%) and US$780 million (up 297.7%). The investment from the country was concentrated on e-commerce, cloud computing, financial and insurance services, etc. In the case of Japan, those were US$370 million (down 9.6%) and US$312 million (up 26.9%). Some diversification in terms of destination was witnessed from chemical engineering and electric and electronics to consumer goods, information and communications, and finance.
In the manufacturing sector, the reported FDI increased 58.6% to US$1.54 billion as the number of joint investments increased for transport machinery, electric and electronics, etc. In the service industry, the reported FDI rose 18.6% to US$3.34 billion based on investment in IT platform, cloud computing, e-commerce, fintech and the like.
Greenfield investment totaled US$3.56 billion, the largest Q1 amount, with a year-on-year increase of 16.2%. Likewise, M&A investment rose 73.8% to US$1.38 billion.