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World Foreign Direct Investment Inflows Hit Record High in 2000
World Foreign Direct Investment ( FDI) inflows increased by 18 percent in 2000 to a record 1.3 trillion U.S. dollars, according to the figures released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Thursday.
The figures showed that FDI flows have risen continuously since 1991, the longest period of uninterrupted growth in 30 years. UNCTAD experts said that among the three groups of economies developed countries, developing countries and Central and Eastern Europe, the developed countries experienced the highest growth of FDI inflows last year.
FDI inflows in developed countries increased by 21 percent, reaching 1 trillion dollars.
Experts held that the rise was again fueled by cross-border mergers and acquisitions. Record levels were also set for inflows into developing countries and Central and Eastern Europe, which were up by about 8 percent to 240 billion dollars and by 9 percent to 25 billion dollars respectively.
However, experts said the developing countries' and Central and Eastern Europe's share in world FDI inflows continued to slide down. The share of the developing world was the lowest in a decade.
They said that although the stagnation of FDI flows to developing countries in 1997-1998 is over, the growth of these flows last year was only led by Asia, particularly Hong Kong, China.
Flows to Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean actually declined. The general slump in developing countries was felt most sharply in the latter region, where flows were down 22 percent to 86 billion dollars.
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