Inbound, outbound FDI surged to new highs last month

The nation's foreign direct investment (FDI) reached US$899 million last month, a 280 percent increase from a year ago, according to statistics compiled by the Investment Commission.

Combining the foreign fund inflows in the first five months this year, aggregated FDI has jumped 582 percent to US$6.64 billion, the commission under the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement released yesterday.

The Netherlands, Singapore, the Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands, the US and Japan are the top five contributors of FDI, which focused on electronic component manufacturing, banking, the technology service industry and retailing, the statistics showed.

Taiwanese investment in foreign countries last month also jumped by 726 percent from a year ago to US$692 million, and the figure for the first five months of the year increased by 69 percent to US$1.42 billion, the statement said.

One major outbound investment was made by BenQ Corp (明基), which remitted US$300 million to BenQ Mobile Holding BV, the commission said.

Taiwanese investment in China last month rose 83 percent to US$718 million, with the first five months of the year seeing a 46 percent increase from a year ago to US$2.88 billion, the statement said.

Major investors include Gigabyte Technology Co (技嘉科技) and Lite-On Technology Corp (光寶科技), which increased investment in their Chinese units.