Foreign investment in Pakistan slightly rises
Foreign investment in Pakistan during July 2016-June 2017 amounted to 2.157 billion dollars.
KARACHI (Dunya News) - Foreign investment in the country recorded a small rise of 9 percent during financial year ended June 30, 2017 after security situation improved and fresh inflows from China crossing one billion dollars level.
Foreign investment in Pakistan during July 2016-June 2017 amounted to 2.157 billion dollars as against 1.976 billion dollars of the preceding year.
Major chunk of foreign investment arrived from China amounting to 1.185 billion dollars during the preceding fiscal year. Second country which contributed most was Netherland which bought Engro Foods worth 463 million dollars during the previous year. Another stepping stone which boosted the investment was buying of Dwalance by Turkey group which helped improved flows amounting to 135 million dollars.
The performance from the foreign investors buying and selling stocks at local capital market was quite poor..
Foreign outflow during the preceding year was 531 million dollars as compared to 320 million dollars of the preceding year.
The root cause of foreign selling during the earlier part of the fiscal year was political situation joining to Panama issues and afterwards, the local bourse up gradation from frontier market to emerging market, which led to heavy foreign selling in the month of May.
All eyes on election 2018, outcome of Supreme Court hearing, rupee fluctuation and performance of the key economic indicator to decide the foreign investment in the stock market and other industrial areas. Investment from China has been pouring in but the amount is limited and burden on the economy has been larger than expected because of widening trade deficit.
(Story by Haris Zamir)