20 Nov 2009 13:23

Foreign direct investment in Russia plunges 48% to $10 bln in Jan-Sept

MOSCOW. Nov 20 (Interfax) - Foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Russian economy plummeted 48% in January-September 2009 compared with the same period last year to $9.975 billion, the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) said.

Overall foreign investment fell 27.8% to $54.700 billion.

Rosstat said foreign portfolio investment fell 21.4% year-on-year to $1.019 billion. This includes a 65.8% drop to $348 million for investment in equities.

Other forms of investment in Russia fell 21% to $43.744 billion, including $9.25 billion in trade credits, which fell 27%, and $34.214 billion in other credits, down 17.6%.

The retail and wholesale sector received the most FDI, $16.2 billion, including $2 billion from Germany, followed by the processing sector with $15 billion and the extractive sector with $5.7 billion. The transportation and communication sector received $8.5 billion in FDI, including $5 billion from China, a real estate operations and leases received $5.6 billion.

Cumulative foreign investment in the Russian economy was $262.4 billion at the end of September, up 4.4% from a year previously. Cumulative investment was dominated by "other" returnable investment such as loans from international financial organizations and trade credits with 55.7% of the total in the nine months (50.7% at the end of September 2008) and FDI - 39.7% (46.9%). Portfolio investment accounted for 4.6% (2.4%).

Investors from Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany, China, the UK, Switzerland, Japan accounted for 75.1% of the overall cumulative investment and 73% of the cumulative FDI.

Russian investment abroad decreased 23.4% to $70 billion in the nine months, and $61.7 billion of previous Russian investment abroad was repaid, down 24.3%.

Cumulative investment abroad from Russia stood at $65.6 billion at the end of September. Direct investment accounted for $43.8 billion of that amount, portfolio investment - $2.53 billion and other investment - $19.21 billion.

Cumulative investment was highest in Cyprus at $17.1 billion, the Netherlands at $13.55 billion, the United States at $6.17 billion, Switzerland at $6.1 billion, the Virgin Islands at $4.04 billion, the UK at $2.48 billion, Germany at $2.36 billion and Belarus at $2.23 billion.

The highest amounts of Russian investment abroad during then nine months went to Switzerland ($33.4 billion), the Netherlands ($9.78 billion), Cyprus ($4.82 billion) and Belarus ($4.9 billion).