KARACHI: Pakistan’s foreign direct investment (FDI) stood at $939.7 million in the first four months of the current fiscal year, 74.4 percent above the inflows recorded during the same period a year ago, figures from the central bank showed on Wednesday.

The country received $277.7 million in FDI in October, compared with $115.3 million during the corresponding month of the last fiscal year. A bulk of the four months’ FDI was from China, followed by Malaysia and France.

Chinese investment came at $631.7 million, up 224.6 percent from the same period in FY17. The Chinese firms invested a large part of their funds mostly in energy and infrastructure projects under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The net inflow of FDI from Malaysia stood at $107.0 million in July-October FY18 against $9.4 million in the same period of last year.

French investors accounted for $38.0 million in FDI during the period under review. The country had attracted $12.1 million worth of FDI flows from France in the four months of the last fiscal year.

The State Bank’s figures showed that power sector received the biggest share of foreign funds, followed by construction, financial services, and communications sector.

The inflow of direct investment in the power sector increased 125.4 percent to $422.4 million in four months of FY18. The construction sector fetched $177.0 million in FDI, compared with $31.4 million a year earlier.

Experts see brighter prospects of FDI in FY18 as economy appears to be expanding and work on certain electricity generation and development projects under CPEC remains on track. FDI increased to $2.730 billion in FY17 from $2.305 billion in the previous year. The country requires higher official and private financial inflows to fund the current account deficit.

Private financial inflows [FDI] are growing at decent level mainly driven by CPEC inflows. However, there is a need to tap more cross-border investment in times to come.

The SBP’s data revealed that foreign private investors pulled out $53.2 million from the local equity market in July-October FY18. Total foreign investment dropped 49 percent to $836.8 million.