Coronavirus pandemic has put direct paws on attracting country’s foreign direct invest (FDI) as it received only $1.74 billion in the first nine months (July-September). The amount was $2.15 billion in the same period of 2019.

The decrease mirrors an direct impact of coronavirus pandemic which halted global economy for months.

In March, the International Monetary Fund said that investors had withdrawn $83 billion from developing countries since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, the largest capital outflow ever recorded.

The export-oriented clothing industry is still an important recipient of FDI, with major investors from the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong and China. The main investors in the country are China, South Korea, India, Egypt, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia.

The full year data of FDI in Bangladesh is yet to be available.

Bangladesh Bank statistics, however, showed that the net inflow of FDI in the country declined by 19.50 per cent in the first nine months (January-September) .

The central bank data also showed that FDI through equity or fresh capital injection declined by around 22 per cent during the first nine months of 2020. At the same time, FDI through intra-company loans recorded a big drop of 74 per cent.

Reinvested earnings of the existing multinational corporations, however, increased by 12 per cent and recorded net FDI worth $1.12 billion.

Global FDI flows are forecast to decrease by up to 40 per cent in 2020, from their 2019 value of $1.54 trillion, according to the World Investment Report 2020 of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released in June.

This will bring the global FDI below $1 trillion for the first time since 2005.