FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT FORECASTS
In addition to their regular economic forecasts, our country panellists are occasionally asked to provide projections for foreign direct investment inflows (FDI) for the current and next year. We undertake special surveys of FDI inflows across our publications Asia Pacific Consensus Forecasts, Latin American Consensus Forecasts and Eastern Europe Consensus Forecasts and the resulting tables and analysis are displayed in both the hard copy and PDF versions of the publications.
| Asia Pacific Consensus Forecasts |
Latin American Consensus Forecasts |
Eastern Europe Consensus Forecasts |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | Argentina | Czech Republic |
| China | Brazil | Hungary |
| Hong Kong | Chile | Poland |
| India | Mexico | Russia |
| Indonesia | Venezuela | Turkey |
| Malaysia | Colombia | Bulgaria |
| New Zealand | Peru | Croatia |
| Philippines | Estonia | |
| Singapore | Latvia | |
| South Korea | Lithuania | |
| Taiwan | Romania | |
| Thailand | Slovakia | |
| Slovenia | ||
| Ukraine |
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The consensus forecasts, representing averages of our individual country panellists' projections, were used to calculate estimates of FDI in relation to country size, i.e. as a share of nominal GDP, and population. The table below shows a small portion of the data from one of our surveys of forecasts Foreign Direct Investment (in this case, from our November 2009 Asia Pacific Consensus Forecasts survey).
| FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT | ||||||||
| Net FDI, US$bn | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 |
| CHINA | 53.5 | 60.6 | 60.3 | 63.6 | 74.8 | 92.4 | 88.8 | 105.5 |
| % of GDP | 3.2 | 3.1 | 2.6 | 2.3 | 2.2 | 2.1 | 1.9 | 1.9 |
| US$ per capita | 41.3 | 46.5 | 46.0 | 47.7 | 56.3 | 69.1 | 65.9 | 77.8 |
| HONG KONG | 13.7 | 34.0 | 33.6 | 45.0 | 54.3 | 63.0 | 54.1 | 62.4 |
| % of GDP | 8.6 | 20.5 | 18.9 | 23.7 | 26.2 | 29.3 | 25.6 | 27.9 |
| US$ per capita | 2005.3 | 4967.2 | 4889.6 | 6507.9 | 7816.8 | 9024.6 | 7717.9 | 8845.3 |
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), i.e. investment in one country by the residents of another, includes equity transactions, reinvested earnings and various inter-company capital transactions. FDI is generally considered to be more motivated by longer term considerations than portfolio investment in tradeable securities. The data is recorded in the financial account of the balance of payments, but cross-country comparisons can often be complicated by the different statistical methods used for compilation and the exchange rate chosen for converting local currency into US dollars. In addition, there can be differences in the minimum equity stake necessary for an investment to qualify as direct investment, rather than portfolio investment. FDI inflows held up relatively well in 2008, declining for only a handful of countries. However, this year's global downturn and the toll of the financial crisis will see most countries witness a downturn in foreign investment inflows. In the case of China, however, only a modest slowdown in FDI is predicted for 2009. The economy's rapid recovery makes it an attractive destination for investors and FDI inflows are set to top US$100bn in 2010.
A portion of the text from Asia Pacific Consensus Forecasts, November 9, 2009