SEOUL, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- Foreign direct investment (FDI) in South Korea rose in the third quarter, marking the first growth in five quarters, a government report showed Thursday.
The reported FDI amounted to 3.61 billion U.S. dollars in the July-September quarter, up 4.8 percent from the same quarter of last year, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.
It ended the downward trend for the past four quarters. For the first nine months of this year, the reported FDI was 13.49 billion dollars.
The FDI in new growth engines, including high-tech materials and components, artificial intelligence (AI) and fintech, almost doubled to 1.5 billion dollars in the third quarter on a yearly basis.
The FDI in the manufacturing sector tumbled 68.2 percent over the year to 370 million dollars in the third quarter, but the figure for the services industry advanced 37.5 percent to 3.12 billion dollars.
Direct investments from the United States and China declined in double figures in the quarter, but those from the European Union advanced 25.2 percent.
The greenfield investment, which builds factories and create jobs, gained 30.6 percent to 2.67 billion U.S. dollars in the cited period, but the merger and acquisition (M&A) investment reduced 33.0 percent to 940 million U.S. dollars.
