The investments were mostly from Asia, the Statistics Department said.
Malaysia’s FDI covers investments by foreign companies which hold more than 10% equity in Malaysian companies.
The department said in a statement that Asia, as the main source of FDI inflows, accounted for 74.6% or RM35.2 billion.
“After Asia, it was Europe (14.1%). Hong Kong, Singapore and China were the top three countries from Asia,” it added.
In 2016, 50.9% of the FDI inflow was channelled to the services sector, mainly in the utilities sub-sector and financial and insurance/takaful activities.
Meanwhile, manufacturing and mining and quarrying sectors constituted 43.3% of the total FDI.