By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Global financial institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Thursday inward direct investment increased 8.2 percent to $27.9 trillion in 2013 from $25.8 trillion in 2012.

According to the Fund’s latest survey, direct investment is concentrated in a relatively small number of economies in 2013, similar to previous years, 67 percent of the total inward direct investment ($27.9 trillion) was received by the 10 economies with the largest inward direct investment, and 80 percent of the total outward direct investment ($28.2 trillion) originated from the 10 economies with the largest outward direct investment.

The global lender affirmed that there is large direct investment within some regions: intraregional direct investment explains about 2/3 of the inward direct investment in Europe and economies of the Persian Gulf, and almost one half in East Asia in 2013.

‘’With this release, the CDIS website—available publicly at http://data.imf.org/CDIS— has been enhanced, featuring maps, tables, charts, graphs, and relevant documents as well as providing users with the possibility to create extensive customized data reports. The CDIS database presents detailed data on “inward” direct investment (i.e., direct investment positions into the reporting economy) cross-classified by economy of investor, and data on “outward” direct investment (i.e., direct investment positions abroad by the reporting economy) cross-classified by economy of investment. All participants in the CDIS provided data on inward direct investment and most participants (more than two-thirds) also provided data on outward direct investment,’’ the IMF said.