Myanmar's foreign investment hits $43bn

Myanmar's contracted foreign investment hit 43.682 billion U.S. dollars in 600 projects as of August this year, local media reported Thursday. Coming from 32 countries and regions, the investment mainly covers four sectors of electric power, oil and gas, mining and manufacturing. Without specifying the investment amount, the report said China stood as the largest foreign investor, followed by Thailand, China 's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, South Korea, Britain, Singapore, Malaysia, France, Vietnam and India. In the trade sector, Thailand led in Myanmar's exporting countries accounting for 41 percent of the total in 2012, followed by India with 15 percent, China 14 percent, Japan 7 percent and South Korea 4 percent, while China led in Myanmar's importing countries taking up 37 percent of the total, followed by Thailand with 20 percent, Singapore and South Korea 9 percent each and Japan 8 percent, the report added. Myanmar's foreign trade in 2012 was registered as 25.163 billion dollars, of which the export went to 9.70 billion dollars, while the import represented 15.464 billion dollars, suffering a trade deficit of 5.77 billion dollars. According to Myanmar Economic Indicators released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Myanmar's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 5.5 percent with consumer price inflation standing 7.3 percent in 2013. It is estimated that the GDP will rise 6.2 percent with consumer price inflation standing at 6.6 percent in 2014. Myanmar promulgated a new foreign investment law in November 2012, replacing the over-two-decade-long 1988 similar law in a bid to help attracting foreign investment to the country in line with its reform strategy. The new law allows foreigners to make full investment, joint venture operation between foreigner and local citizen or related government department or organization on mutually-agreed ratio of investment.