The slowdown in emerging markets has hit foreign direct investment flows into much of the developing world. But there are significant disparities among geographical regions.
Advanced economies are expected to see stronger economic growth in 2015, while growth in emerging economies is projected to decline from 4.6 per cent in 2014 to 4.3 per cent in 2015, according to the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook.
Asia’s emerging markets have continued to perform well in attracting FDI, with India, Malaysia and Vietnam all seeing large increases in the number of inbound greenfield investment projects in 2014 compared with the previous year, according to a report from fDi Intelligence, a data division of the Financial Times group. Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand also enjoyed increases last year. China, the region’s largest FDI destination by a long measure, had a rise of 4 per cent in projects and 9 per cent in capital investment — suggesting that FDI into China could be reaching a plateau due to slowing growth and rising costs.