Foreign Direct Investment Boosts U.S. Economy

There’s a prevalent attitude in the United States that our country is the one funding businesses abroad.  In fact, this is a two way street.  In the past decade, foreign investments have supported five million jobs.  These aren’t low paying jobs either.  On average these jobs backed by foreign investment pay 30 percent more than other jobs.

This information comes from a new report called “Foreign Direct Investment in the United States” from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economics and Statistics Administration (ESA).  According to the report, total foreign direct investment has exceeded $1.7 trillion over the past decade.  The manufacturing sector relies heavily on FDI, where close to two million FDI-supported jobs reside.  In 2010, $78 billion, or 41 percent of total FDI, was spent on the manufacturing sector.

Most of these funds are coming from the same eight countries: Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Canada.

“Foreign direct investment in the United States is a critical dimension of our economy and one that holds great growth potential for high-paying American jobs,” Acting Commerce Deputy Secretary Rebecca Blank said. “By expanding the number of countries that bring business operations to the United States and encouraging further domestic business expansion, we can leverage foreign investment as a powerful engine for U.S. economic growth and job creation.”

It will be interesting to learn more about why these particular eight countries find the United States an alluring place to set up shop.  What does the United States offer these companies that they are not able to find in their own country?