The latest OECD FDI Foreign Direct Investment trends
The OECD has just released its latest analysis of FDI, the Foreign Direct Investment trends and developments. In the first half of 2016, global FDI flows decreased by 5 % to USD 793 billion in comparison to the second half of 2015, but remained above the half-year levels observed in 2013 and 2014
Other findings include:
• Highly volatile FDI flows reached USD 513 billion in Q1 due to large flows in the US and to a lesser extent in the UK after Royal Dutch Shell bought British Gas, before dropping to USD 279 billion in Q2.
• The US remained by far the largest source of FDI worldwide, followed by China, the Netherlands (excluding investments from Special Purpose Entities) and Japan.
• Inflows to OECD countries increased by 14 % compared to the second half of 2015. However, without the increase in inflows received by the US, OECD FDI inflows would have dropped due to widespread disinvestments recorded in selected countries in Q2. Outflows from OECD countries decreased by 16 %, affected by these large disinvestments.
• FDI flows into EU countries decreased by 39 % (from USD 346 billion to USD 210 billion) and outflows decreased by 45 % (from USD 315 billion to USD 174 billion).
• FDI inflows to the G20 as a whole increased by 57 %. FDI inflows to OECD G20 economies more than doubled but were partly offset by a 28 % drop in FDI inflows to non-OECD G20 economies.
• FDI inflows in non-OECD G20 countries decreased in all economies, except in Russia, where they almost tripled (from USD 3 billion to USD 9 billion but still well below the levels seen a few years ago).
The full report is available here