According to the World Invest-ment Report, produced by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) and released yesterday, global FDI started to recover in the first half of this year after a bottom-out in 2009.

In response to the Unctad report, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Thailand's investment promotion policy was consistent with the global trend in green investments.

And Board of Investment secretary-general Atchaka Sibunruang Brimble said low-carbon projects such as renewable energy and eco-friendly products started to take off last year.

For example, Thailand is now the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' leader in solar-energy farms, she said.

According to Unctad, fast-growing green investments are the critical component of global FDI, projected to total $1.2 trillion this year based on a global economic growth rate of 3 per cent.

In the first five months of 2010, global FDI jumped 36 per cent from the same period last year.

Overall FDI is projected to rise to between $1.3 trillion and $1.5 trillion in 2011 and between $1.6 trillion and $2 trillion in 2012 - the level recorded before the global economic crisis in 2008.

According to Unctad, global FDI plunged a staggering 37 per cent during 2008-09 after the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers, which triggered a worldwide financial crisis and economic recession.

However, major economies in Asia, especially China and India, were not seriously hit by the crisis, so they helped pull the global economy out of recession faster than anticipated.

In this context, East, South and Southeast Asia led the world's FDI recovery, with the top three destinations for global FDI being mainland China, Hong Kong and India.

Asean is also among the FDI recipients, while Thailand, for example, also promotes some outward FDI by easing its foreign-exchange rules so that large domestic firms can invest in neighbouring countries.

However, the Unctad report also noted that there remained significant risks to the global economic recovery, which could in turn affect the recovery of FDI.

Looking forward, Unctad has projected that multinational |corporations will sharply increase their investments in lower-carbon industries in the next several years to help mitigate the impacts of |climate change