Malaysia said it was on track to achieve a foreign direct investment or FDI target of 10 billion U.S. dollars this year, after inflows rebounded to 9.1 billion U.S. dollars last year -- the highest in the country in five years.
The "World Investment Report 2011" released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Tuesday showed FDI inflows to Malaysia rebounded more than six folds from 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2009.
The country ranked third among the South East Asian nations, after Singapore, which attracted 38.6 billion U.S. dollars of FDI inflows last year, and Indonesia.
The report said the strong rebound in the FDI inflows, led by manufacturing, was in line with the trend of global economic recovery, with emerging economies, especially those from Asia, leading growth.
The country's FDI inflows for the first quarter of this year stood at 3.7 billion U.S. dollars.
A bigger portion of the inflows this year expected to be dedicated to the oil and gas sector.
Manufacturing accounts for 54.9 percent of the total FDI inflows to the country in 2010, followed by the services sector, 34.1 percent.
International Trade Minister Mustapa Mohamad told reporters he expected FDI inflows to continue growing in years to come considering the further liberalisation of the country's services sector and the major economic transformation programmes, introduced by the government last year, are gaining momentum. /.