KARACHI: The first four months of this fiscal year saw repatriation of $405 million in profits and dividends on foreign investments (including portfolio investment) compared to $408m the same period last fiscal year.
A latest report of the State Bank showed that during July-October 2014-15, the repatriation of profits and dividends on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) was $344m.
In the same period of previous fiscal year, the FDI inflows were $288m while the outflows of profits and dividends were $354m, suggesting the situation has improved this fiscal year.
The major change appeared in communications sector. The inflows in this sector jumped to $110m in July-October while it witnessed net outflow of $96m in the corresponding period last year.
The FDI in telecommunications during the period under review were $109.3m while it was negative $101m last year.
The repatriation of profits and dividends on foreign investments in this sector stood at $23.9m in July-October 2014-15 compared to $17.3m in the same period last year.
The power sector FDI inflows were $25.3m while outflows of profit and dividends were $40.7m in July-October 2014-15. This was much strange as the sector received just $6.7m FDI in the same period last year, but paid profits and dividends of $65.4m.
The entire picture of the inflows and outflows showed that no sector was stable as both the inflows and outflows kept fluctuating with big margins.
The highest FDI inflow of $130.5m was received by oil and gas exploration sector during first four months of this fiscal year compared to $146m in the corresponding of last fiscal year. The repatriation of profits was $37m during the period compared to $28m in the same period last year.
The financial sector also received a significant amount of $48.6m in FDI during the period under review, but it was lower than the $52m it received in the corresponding months of last year.
Though the cigarettes are not allowed to create attraction through advertisements, the consumption has been rising and the country consumed 64.4 billion cigarettes in FY14. The sector is attractive for the foreign investors as they invested $35m in the first four months of 2014-15. During the same period last year, the FDI in this sector was $45m.
Food has been an attractive sector for the foreign investors and the sector received $16.9m FDI during the first four months of this fiscal year, but it was much less than of last year’s $30.6m.
The chemical sector attracted $48.6m in foreign investment during July-October 2014-15.
