Singapore has replaced China as the leading investing country in Cambodia in 2021, accounting for six projects, or 40 percent of Cambodia’s inward FDI, revealed the Investment Monitor’s ‘2022 Inward FDI Performance Index’, released recently.

China, which held the top position in both 2019 and 2020, dropped to joint second, alongside the US, recording three projects. Myanmar, Hong Kong and the Netherlands made up the remaining investments.

According to a report by Investment Monitor, titled ‘Cambodia punches above its weight in attracting FDI,’ the Kingdom is also the third most attractive investment location for foreign money in Asia Pacific after Singapore and New Zealand.

“Cambodia is a lesser-known FDI location in South East Asia, must compete against the likes of Singapore and Vietnam to attract inward investment. Despite the stiff competition it has managed to win more than its fair share of greenfield projects,” the report said.

The Index measures a country’s inward investment levels against its gross domestic product (GDP) using GlobalData’s FDI Projects Database, which tracks greenfield projects. “This means that Cambodia, with a score of 3.26, received more than three times its fair share of inward greenfield FDI compared with what could be expected given its level of GDP. In that regard, Cambodia is punching well above its weight in FDI terms,” the report said.

According to it, FDI peaked in Cambodia in 2019, with 43 projects. In terms of capital investment, this represented a 15.5 percent increase over 2018 figures, to $3.7 billion, said the UN Conference on Trade and Development’s 2020 World Investment Report.

FDI experienced a steep decline in 2020 due to the global coronavirus pandemic, with project numbers dropping by 65.1 percent to 18. In 2021, it fell further to 15.

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Author: Manoj Mathew

Source: Khmer Times

Publication date: 2 November 2022