Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Foreign investments in Russia rise a tad in 2002
Agence France-Presse Moscow, February 18
Foreign direct investments (FDI) in Russia hardly grew last year, rising by just 0.6 per cent, despite an improvement in the economic and legal environment, official statistics showed on Tuesday.
The country received only $4.002 billion (3.73 billion euros) in direct foreign investment in 2002, compared to $3.98 billion in 2001, the state statistics committee said.
However, this disappointing figure is dwarfed by the $6.75 billion that British oil major BP announced last week it would spend over the next four years on creating Russia's third-biggest oil and gas company.
And if total foreign investments are counted, including portfolio investments and credits, they shot up by 38.7 per cent to $19.78 billion in 2002.
Portfolio investments increased by 4.6 per cent to $472 million and other investments (mainly credits) grew by 55.8 per cent to $15.306 billion. The energy, metallurgical and agro-business sectors were the main destination for foreign capital inflows in 2002.
Germany remained the top foreign investor in Russia (19 per cent of total investments, followed by Cyprus (13.1 per cent). However, most funds from Cyprus are of Russian origin as the island is used as an offshore haven by Russian companies.
The United States is in third place (12.9 per cent), followed by Britain (11.8 per cent) and France (7.1 per cent). In direct foreign investment alone, the United States is number one, with Cyprus and the Netherlands behind.
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