The net foreign direct investment witnessed a robust hike of 114.31 per cent in the first quarter or January-March period of 2025 to $864.63 million, according to recent data published by the Bangladesh Investment Development Authority.
In the corresponding period of 2024, the net FDI was $403.44 million, the BIDA stated citing Foreign Investment and External Debt Management Cell, Statistics Department of the Bangladesh Bank as the source.
In the preceding quarter of October-December of 2024, the net FDI was $490.4 million, from which the FDI witnessed a 76.31 per cent positive growth to $864.63 million in the next quarter, which is the January-March one.
Meanwhile, during the first quarter of 2025, the gross FDI inflow was $1.58 billion, among which $304 million was in the form of equity, $644.81 million reinvested earnings and $626.97 million intra-company loans.
By deducting $711.53 million, the net FDI stood at $864.63 million in the first quarter of 2025, where $265.65 million was equity, $194.71 million reinvested earnings and $404.27 million intra-company loans.
In a social media post, Chowdhury Ashik Mahmud Bin Harun, executive chairman of the BIDA and the Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority, said that they did not claim that this surge in FDI was聽necessarily the result of the current policy initiatives they have taken.
鈥業nvestment decisions were likely made earlier and what is being seen now is the reflection of聽improved processing efficiency,鈥� he added.
He also said that the organisations like聽the BIDA聽and the Bangladesh Bank were fast-tracking聽foreign loan scrutiny and approvals,聽contributing to the recent uptick in the FDI inflow.
Earlier, he also said that their works on attracting FDI primarily focused on聽three key areas, like to聽take targeted policy and execution-level actions to create an investment-friendly environment, to turn existing investors into ambassadors by聽 resolving their issues on a case-by-case basis and to improve the country鈥檚 image while building a solid and credible investment pipeline.
Earlier, Dhaka urged all Bangladesh missions abroad to design strategy to attract FDI to Bangladesh from their respective host countries.聽
