SEOUL, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Foreign direct investment (FDI) in South Korea rose in the first quarter, continuing to grow for the third consecutive quarter, a government report showed Thursday.

The reported FDI amounted to 3.27 billion U.S. dollars in the January-March quarter, up 3.2 percent from the same quarter of last year, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. It kept rising since the third quarter of last year.

The ministry said the expanded foreign investment in the industrial material, component and equipment contributed to the first-quarter increase.

The greenfield investment, which builds factories and creates jobs, declined in double figures to 1.87 billion dollars in the March quarter, while the merger and acquisition investment advanced in double digits to 1.40 billion dollars.

The FDI in the manufacturing industry dived 48.7 percent to 0.62 billion dollars, but the figure in the services sector jumped 37.8 percent to 2.65 billion dollars.

Despite the first-quarter growth, the FDI is forecast to fall sharply in the second quarter due to an economic fallout from the COVID-19 outbreak across the world, the ministry noted. Enditem

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