FDI by Country 2023

FDI stands for Foreign Direct Investment. It’s when one company decides to buy into another company operating in another country. The list of FDI by country involves inflows and outflows of money in and out of different locations.

Inflow Versus Outflow Investments

“Inflow” means the amount of money transferred into a location. The “Outflow” means the sum sent out to another place.

A total of $712.4 billion of inflow went to developed countries and $670.7 billion to developing economies (countries, territories, etc.) as of 2018. Outflows from developed countries totaled about $1.0092 trillion, and developed countries sent out $380.8 billion to other places.

Top FDI Inflow By Country

United States received a sum of $275.4 billion inflow in 2017 according to the World Investment Report 2018 (page 21). This ranked the nation number one on this dataset.

China ranked as having the second most inflow at this time, and this totaled $136.3 billion. Hong Kong ranked third at $104.3 billion, Brazil in fourth with $62.7 billion and Singapore fifth with $62.0 billion.

Top FDI Outflow By Country

The number one 2017 FDI outflow ranking went to the U.S., totaling $342 billion. Japan came in at second with $160 billion, China at third with $125 billion, and United Kingdom with $100 billion, which put them at fourth. Hong Kong ranked as having the fifth highest outflow amount, which totaled $83 billion. Global FDI Increases (2020-2021)

Post-pandemic numbers spiked 88% higher than what they measured before the Covid-19 quarantines started. This surge happened in 2021, for a world total of $1.779 billion USD, which is up from $1.133 billion in 2020. Total FDI inflows increased by 75% around the world.

Country Increases

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which includes 38 countries as of 2021, provides top FDI country data for 2020 and 2021.

Canadian inflows shifted about 62% from $23 billion to $60 billion between 2020-2021, which indicates one of the highest percentage changes. An inflow change of almost 57% in the U.S. has occurred since before the pandemic (2020 to 2021), reaching $382 billion from $164 billion.

China is second on the list of having the most inflow next to the U.S. However, it only had a percentage change of a little more than 24%, reaching $334 billion from $253 billion.

Within the 38 OECD countries as a whole, the amount of inflow increase almost doubled ($809 billion from $462 billion). For European Union countries, a drop from $195 to $138 billion occurred.