Malaysia emerges 3rd biggest investor in Africa

Malaysia has become the third biggest investor in Africa after France and the United States, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said.

He said Malaysia was also ahead of China in terms of the size of its foreign direct investments (FDIs) into Africa.

"Malaysia has surpassed China in the FDI size in Africa, making us the third biggest investor behind France and the United States. "(There's good) potential for strong economic output," he said in his latest tweet today.

A Reuters news agency report had published a United Nations' data, which showed Malaysia was the third biggest investor in Africa in 2011, the latest year for which the data was available, behind France and the United States, pushing China and India into fourth and fifth positions.

It said Malaysia's big spenders in Africa were Petronas and Sime Darby Bhd.

The report said Malaysia's global FDI portfolio was more than quintupled over the past decade to reach US$106 billion by end-2011.

Of the total, US$19.3 billion was in Africa, more than US$16 billion of African investments owned by China and US$14 billion held by India.