FDI approvals up 18% in August

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Foreign direct investment (FDI) approvals in August increased by 18 percent to US$345.7 million from $293.5 million in the previous month, the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) said in a report.

But the BKPM said that if compared to the same month last year, new investment approvals dropped by 25.2 percent, while investment on expansion of existing projects fell by 24.9 percent. The report was released on Wednesday.

During January to August period, BKPM approved 576 new projects worth $1.63 billion and 181 expansion projects worth $725.9 million.

BKPM reported that FDI approvals during the January-August period increased by 23.4 percent to $5.02 billion from $4.07 billion over the same period last year.

But this is mainly due to a change in the status of some projects or companies from domestic investment scheme to foreign investment scheme.

The most popular sectors for FDI were the trading sector, metal, machinery and electronics, the BKPM report said.

Meanwhile, domestic investment approvals contracted by 14.1 percent to Rp 13.98 trillion from Rp 16.27 trillion during the first eight months of this year compared to the same period last year.

The most popular sectors for domestic investment were the food industry, chemicals, pharmaceutical, metal, machinery and electronic industries.