Foreign Direct Investment in the United States. Transactions

Digitized for FRASER
Federal Reserve Bank of St.Louis
-3-
INVESTMENT BY SOURCE COUNTRY
The major industrialized countries have traditionally been the source of most
direct investment activity in the United States. This trend continued in 1990
as seven nations-Japan, the United Kingdom, France, West Germany,
Canada, Italy, and Switzerland-accounted for 811 transactions or 80 percent
of the total transactions, down from 81 percent in 1989. The identified
aggregate value of the transactions by the seven countries-$51.4
billion-represented 89 percent of the total identified value, as compared with
88 percent in 1989. This identified aggregate value declined by 22 percent
from $65.5 billion in 1989, however.
As in the last six years, Japan was the source country for the largest number
of transactions. More than 45 percent, or 460 transactions, originated from
Japan in 1990, with 231 identified values totaling $20 billion. The United
Kingdom was second with 117 transactions and 64 identified values totaling
$11 billion. France was third in number of transactions with 69, of which 24
had identified values of $9 billion. (Figure 2 shows the number of
investments by the top seven source countries for direct investment in terms
of known value.)
Table I shows the number of completed transactions with identified values by
country for 1990, while Table II shows the continuing dominance of the
principal source countries (also the United States’ largest trading partners) as
Figure 2
NUMBER OF INVESTMENTS BY SOURCE COUNTRY
1990
United Kingdom 117
Germany
Canada 46
Total 1018 »100%
Japan 460
J N Italy 29
Switzerland 27
All Others 207