Singapore extended its lead as Asia’s biggest investor in Japan. For the first nine months this year, Singapore has pumped US$2.5 billion in direct investments into Japan.
According to the Japan External Trade Organisation, there is about 86% of the total that the rest of Asia invested in Japan during the same period, and twice the amount Singapore companies brought into the country for the whole of 2007.
According to Japan’s Finance Ministry, the United States remains the largest global direct investor in Japan. However, because of the economic slowdown, US companies cut back their investments from US$13.27 billion in 2007 to US$5.61 billion this year.
Jetro notes, not taking into account the January-September 2008 figures, that Singapore Investment Corporation invested heavily in Japan’s real estate last year – US$721.8 million in Westin Tokyo hotel and US$862.2 million in Hawks Town.
“The value of inflow from Singapore rose by more than 10 times over the past five years and accounted for 80 per cent of the net inflow from Asia in 2007, of which approximately 60 per cent was investment towards the real estate industry,” according to the report.
Singapore posted a net foreign direct investment (FDI) of US$1.28 billion in Japan last year. At the end of 2007, Singapore invested US$4.62 billion in Japan – the largest among Asian countries. Hong Kong invested US$2.3 billion, the next largest Asian FDI in the country, followed by Taiwan with US$1.53 billion. On the other hand, China’s accumulated FDI in Japan was US$125 million only.