FIRB Annual Report 2014-2015

On 8 April 2016, the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) released its annual report for 2014-2015. A copy of the report is available here.

The main points outlined in the report include:

• In 2014-15, there were 37,953 proposals that received foreign investment approval, compared with 24,102 in 2013-14.
• The real estate sector had a significant increase in approvals with 37,347 approvals in 2014-15, compared with 23,428 approvals in 2013-14 and is more than triple the levels of 2012-13.
• The number of approvals in other sectors was broadly unchanged with 592 approvals in 2014-15, compared with 585 approvals in 2013-14.
• Approvals in 2014-15 were given for $194.6 billion of proposed investment, a 16.3 per cent increase on 2013-14.
• This increase was largely due to continuing growth in residential real estate applications. Proposed investment in residential real estate increased from $34.7 billion in 2013-14 to $60.8 billion in 2014-15. There was also $36.2 billion of proposed investment in the commercial real estate sector.
• In other sectors, approved proposed investment in 2014-15 was $97.7 billion, growing at a more moderate pace of around 5.3 per cent.

The United States remains Australia’s dominant inward investor country, accounting for around 23.7 per cent of the total stock of foreign direct investment. China ($46.6 billion) remains the largest source country for approved proposed investment in 2014-15 although this growth remains from a low base. China is the fifth largest source country in respect of the stock of foreign direct investment, accounting for around 4.4 per cent of the total stock.

In 2014-15, no proposals were rejected (compared with three rejected proposals in 2013-14) but conditions were applied to around 40 per cent of all foreign investment approvals.

Post by John Kell