Foreign direct investment

Investor sources, reporting bases, and coverage gaps in ASEAN FDI flows. Read the insight →

Recipient Observation year

ASEAN aggregate: sources of investment

Published source categories, not a complete partition. Amounts and shares are independent supplied fields. No missing amount is inferred from a share or recipient total.

Reporting basis

BoP FDI inflows

US$ billion; bars begin at zero and use a separate scale for this reporting basis. Source categories can overlap: do not add them together.

ASEAN aggregate source breakdown, 2023, BoP FDI inflows. Each row includes source, year and as_of.
Investor source / category	US$ billion	Share of recipient (%)	Reporting notes & provenance
United Statescountry	74.4	32.4	BoP FDI inflows, US$ billion Largest source in 2023. Cross-checked with Southeast Asia FDI Monitor 2025 (SSRN) ~32% / ~US$74bn. Total ASEAN FDI per Brief US$229.8bn. ASEAN Statistical Brief Vol. 9 (June 2024), ASEANstats · year 2023 · as_of 2026-09-06
European Unionregion	24.9	10.8	BoP FDI inflows, US$ billion EU aggregate as published in Statistical Brief; share vs Brief total US$229.8bn. ASEAN Statistical Brief Vol. 9 (June 2024), ASEANstats · year 2023 · as_of 2026-09-06
Intra-ASEANintra asean	21.9	9.5	BoP FDI inflows, US$ billion Brief share 9.5%. Fulcrum/AIR 2025 separately reports intra-ASEAN share dipped to 10.4% in 2023 — possible revision; see gaps.md. ASEAN Statistical Brief Vol. 9 (June 2024), ASEANstats · year 2023 · as_of 2026-09-06
Chinacountry	17.3	7.5	BoP FDI inflows, US$ billion Mainland China; Hong Kong reported separately. ASEAN Statistical Brief Vol. 9 (June 2024), ASEANstats · year 2023 · as_of 2026-09-06
Hong Kong (China)other	15.0	6.5	BoP FDI inflows, US$ billion Often a conduit for ultimate investors; do not equate to mainland China. ASEAN Statistical Brief Vol. 9 (June 2024), ASEANstats · year 2023 · as_of 2026-09-06
Japancountry	14.5	6.3	BoP FDI inflows, US$ billion ASEAN Statistical Brief Vol. 9 (June 2024), ASEANstats · year 2023 · as_of 2026-09-06

Key findings from this pack

Start with the ASEAN aggregate, then select a recipient and year.
BoP flows, registrations, approvals and applications measure different concepts.
Singapore’s hub role does not establish the ultimate destination of investment.
Missing source amounts stay missing; regional categories can overlap.

Methods & coverage

AIR Table 1.3 revision

The US 2024 flow is revised to US$42bn / 18.6%. The earlier portal summary is superseded. The CSV row records the revision; the 2023 Brief snapshot remains historical. FDI by sector & source uses the revised AIR tables. Singapore’s hub share does not establish a US-to-Singapore path.

Separate reporting bases

BoP records cross-border FDI transactions. BKPM realization excludes sectors and uses a half-year period in this pack. Vietnam’s registered capital, newly licensed projects and disbursement are distinct concepts. Malaysia’s approvals and Thailand’s applications describe project pipelines. None should be combined with BoP totals or treated as the same measure.

Categories are not additive

The European Union is an aggregate as published, not an individual country. Mainland China and Hong Kong are separate source labels; Hong Kong may act as a conduit. Singapore is included within intra-ASEAN in the Malaysia breakdown. These overlapping rows must not be summed or stacked into a complete source mix. Recipient totals are shown separately from source rows.

Intra-ASEAN revision note

Brief share 9.5%. Fulcrum/AIR 2025 separately reports intra-ASEAN share dipped to 10.4% in 2023 — possible revision; see gaps.md.

ASEAN Statistical Brief Vol. 9 (June 2024), ASEANstats · year 2023 · as_of 2026-09-06

Routing does not establish ultimate ownership

Singapore’s financial-hub, holding-company and headquarters roles can affect recorded source and recipient patterns. Flows routed through Singapore may represent investors headquartered elsewhere. Recorded FDI is not a direct measure of greenfield production capacity.

Gaps and source-access limits

The original snapshot recorded blocked PDF access. The September 2026 sector-map pack now supplies AIR Table 1.3 and Figure 1.2; historical rows retain their original attributions. Some rows rely on summary pages, secondary reporting or research extracts attributed to those publications. This site preserves those attributions and access caveats; it does not claim an independent rereading of the annex tables.

Some ASEAN aggregate source amounts are missing. The Philippines lacks a source breakdown here; several other recipients have only totals or partial source observations. Missing pairs are not zero. Timor-Leste lies outside the ASEANstats member-state table used in this pack. Published annual totals and revision notes should not be turned into a consistent growth series without reconciliation.