Chief statistician Mohd Uzir Mahidin said the FDI inflow last year was mainly channelled to the services sector (48.2%), especially real estate, financial and insurance/takaful and information and communication-related activities.

He said mining and quarrying was the second contributor (313.2%), followed by the manufacturing sector (15.7%).

“As at end-2017, the expansion of the FDI position to RM570.3 billion, compared with RM547.4 billion in 2016, was impelled by the continuous inflows of FDI,” he said in a statement.

Uzir said the top regions for inflows were Asia, with a share of 63.5%, followed by Europe and Africa.

Within Asia, he said, Hong Kong remained the prominent investor, while China has overtaken Singapore as the second largest contributor.