Investment from Singapore has taken the biggest share of foreign investment flow into Myanmar over the one year period following the election of the NLDled government, according to the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA).
Investment-related statistics from the DICA states that Myanmar attracted a total foreign investment value of $6.64 billion over the 2016-2017 financial year. Singapore was the top investor with a $3 billion investment sum, followed by Vietnam with over $1 billion. During that period, Myanmar fetched investment from Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Thailand, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Samoa, Marshall Islands and Taiwan in addition to Singapore and Vietnam.
Among the investment areas the transport and communications sector collected $3.08 billion of foreign investment over the 2016-2017 financial year, emerging as the highest-grossing. The manufacturing sector came second grasping $1.1 billion, followed by the energy sector with $909.88 million. Other sectors such as hotels and tourism, livestock and fisheries and services attracted $403.64 million, $96.67 million and $231.32 million respectively.
In order to improve the investment environment, Myanmar passed a new Investment Law on October 18 2016, merging the pre-existing 2012 Foreign Investment Law and the Myanmar Citizens Investment Law that was enacted in July 2013.
But, entry of foreign investment into Myanmar dropped during the past financial year compared to the 2015-2016 financial year, which saw a record-high influx of foreign direct investment (FDI) under the previous government, grossing total investment volume of $9.4 billion. Singapore topped with $4.3 billion, accompanied by China at second with $3.3 billion. In 2014-2015, the country attracted $8 billion of FDI.
