Dhaka: Bangladesh is one of the top five recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2012, according to the recent report of the FDI Intelligence, which monitors global inflow of FDI regularly.

The report, published last week, placed Bangladesh in the third position after African state Angola and East European country Macedonia when Eurasian state Armenia and northern European country Lithuania ranked the 4th and the 5th in the list.

Bangladesh got the 3rd position with an increase of 33.33 percent of FDI inflow in the past eight months to August 2012 when it was 109.09 percent in Angola and 36.36 percent in Macedonia.

The report does not give the figure of the total inflow of FDI to Bangladesh, but the November issue of the Economic Update of Bangladesh Bank (BB) recorded that the country received a total of US$699.89 as FDI in the first half of the current 2012-13 financial year.

According to the World Investment Report (WIR), 2012 of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Bangladesh received FDI of $1.13 billion in 2011, the highest ever investment from overseas. The previous record amount of FDI was US$1.08 billion in 2008 with increased flow of investment in the country's fast growing telecommunication sector.

Garment sector attracted the highest amount of $271 million last year followed by banking sector with $249.3 million and energy sector with $238.2 million. The telecommunication got only $18.09 million.

Releasing the report at the Board of Investment (BoI) few months back, BoI Chairman SA Samad said the inflow of FDI would increase further if the government follows a more stable tax policy.

Ends/AMA/13/12/12