INVESTMENT Increasing foreign investment into Thailand: IMF

By country, investment from Japan was the highest, at $63.03 billion, according to the preliminary results from its 2013 Coordinated Direct Investment Survey (CDIS), the fund's worldwide survey of bilateral direct investment positions. Japan was followed by Singapore ($26.63 billion), the United States ($13.85 billion), the Netherlands ($11.4 billion), and Hong Kong ($7.86 billion).

Since CDIS was introduced in 2009, the value of such investment into Thailand has continued to rise; from $106.9 billion in 2009, to $139.3 billion in 2010 and $155 billion in 2011.

The latest CDIS also showed that the inward direct investment positions of 88 economies including Thailand increased 8.2 per cent from US$25.8 trillion in 2012 to US$27.9 trillion in 2013. 

Direct investment is concentrated in a relatively small number of economies. In 2013, similarly to previous years, 67 percent of the total inward direct investment (US$27.9 trillion) was received by the 10 economies with the largest inward direct investment, and 80 percent of the total outward direct investment (US$28.2 trillion) originated from the 10 economies with the largest outward direct investment. There is large direct investment within some regions: intraregional direct investment explains about 2/3 of the inward direct investment in Europe and economies of the Persian Gulf, and almost one half in East Asia in 2013.