Bandar Seri Begawan - The Director General of the Department of Economic Planning and Development, Dr Hjh May Faezah bte Hj Ahmad Ariffin said Asean Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) statistics, as reported in the Asean Investment Report 2011 have shown that Asean generated a record high of US$75.8 billion in FDI inflows in 2010 as the region continued to benefit from favourable economic conditions and strong investor interest.

Intra Asean flows exceeded US$10 billion. However, as a percentage of regional GDP, the level of FDI inflows in the region is still small at 4.2 per cent. She said this at the 26th Meeting of the Asean Working Group on International Investment Statistics (WGIIS) and the 5th Regional Workshop on Foreign Direct Investment Statistics yesterday at the Rizqun International Hotel, Gadong. Her text was read by Hj Abd Amin bin Hj Hashim, Deputy Director-General of JPKE.

She added, despite all the FDI statistics that we have collected and compiled for our respective countries to enable the presentation of regional perspective of FDI flows and trends, as in the Asean Investment Report, will still face the challenge of harmonisation in terms of data collection and compilation methodology in order to avoid misinterpretation of the regional data. Timeliness in data dissemination is also an issue that needs to be addressed.

Dr Hjh May Faezah added that FDI has been one of the defining features of the world economy over the past two decades.

It has grown at an unprecedented pace for more than a decade. More firms, in more industries, from more countries are expanding abroad through direct investment than ever before.

"Virtually all economies now compete to attract multinational enterprises. But new FDI will have to be competed for and won. Never before have so many countries sought FDI and never before has it flowed to so many diverse countries. Investment will not come by itself into our region, it will come when investors perceive the region as a profitable place to do business," she said.

The challenge in this task and in undertaking the crucial structural policy changes needed should not be underestimated.

The meeting and workshop is attended by officials from Asean member countries and EASCAB programme experts from the European Union. The 5th Regional Workshop on Foreign Direct Investment (FDIs) was held yesterday while the 26th meeting of the Asean Working Group on International Investment Statistics (WGIIS) is held on Oct 18 and Oct 19 here in Brunei Darussalam.

The objective of the 5th regional workshop is to discuss metadata and data analysis on FDI in accordance with the latest standards.

The 26th meeting of the Asean Working Group on International Investment Statistics aims to obtain an agreement from all the Asean countries to strengthen this working group such as action plans, work programme and data submission templates.