ISLAMABAD, May 21: The inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) registered a 17.2 per cent increase during 10 months (July-April) of the current fiscal year over the same period last fiscal year. Official figures released here by the Board of Investment (BoI) on Saturday showed that the inflow of foreign investment during the period under review reached to $891.5 million as compared to $760.4 million during the corresponding period last year.

The BoI expected that FDI inflows during the current financial year would exceed $1 billion mark, as against $949.4 million of the last year. This will be the highest FDI inflow in Pakistan’s history.

On monthly basis, the FDI however decreased by 22.79 per cent to $98.9 million in April 2005, as against $128.1 million during the same month last year. The value of total FDI during the year 2000-01 stood at $322.4 million, which had increased to $949.4 million during the year 2003-04, indicating an increase of 194.4 per cent during the last four years.

The major leading sectors, which attracted notable FDI during the period, were financial business ($206.1 million), oil and gas ($175.9 million), communications ($112.3 million), power ($61.8 million), trade ($42.1 million), chemical ($37.8 million), and other sectors ($255.5m).

The US has taken the lead during this period by investing $200.9 million and the UK was at second position with FDI of $150 million, followed by Switzerland with $131.6 million, the UAE $69.1 million, Japan $4.3 million, the Netherlands $32.5 million and other countries at $268.1 million.