Press Release No. 14/588

Press Release: IMF Releases Results from 2013 Coordinated Direct Investment Survey

December 18, 2014

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) today released preliminary results from its 2013 Coordinated Direct Investment Survey (CDIS), the Fund’s worldwide survey of bilateral direct investment positions.¹ For the 88 economies that reported data in both 2012 and 2013, inward direct investment positions increased 8.2 percent from US$25.8 trillion in 2012 to US$27.9 trillion in 2013.

Direct investment is concentrated in a relatively small number of economies. In 2013, similarly to previous years, 67 percent of the total inward direct investment (US$27.9 trillion) was received by the 10 economies with the largest inward direct investment, and 80 percent of the total outward direct investment (US$28.2 trillion) originated from the 10 economies with the largest outward direct investment. There is large direct investment within some regions: intraregional direct investment explains about 2/3 of the inward direct investment in Europe and economies of the Persian Gulf, and almost one half in East Asia in 2013.

With this release, the CDIS website—available publicly at http://data.imf.org/CDIS— has been enhanced, featuring maps, tables, charts, graphs, and relevant documents as well as providing users with the possibility to create extensive customized data reports. The CDIS database presents detailed data on “inward” direct investment (i.e., direct investment positions into the reporting economy) cross-classified by economy of investor, and data on “outward” direct investment (i.e., direct investment positions abroad by the reporting economy) cross-classified by economy of investment. All participants in the CDIS provided data on inward direct investment and most participants (more than two-thirds) also provided data on outward direct investment.

The CDIS database contains breakdowns of direct investment positions including, in most instances, separate data on net equity and net debt positions, as well as tables that present “mirror” data, in which data from the reporting economy are shown side-by-side with the data obtained from all other counterpart reporting economies. Mirror data may be compared to an economy’s own estimates vis-à-vis the counterpart. Thus, mirror data are useful in highlighting data gaps or errors and in identifying where follow-up efforts may prove beneficial. The CDIS website also allows users access to metadata reports (which provide information on the characteristics of the data reported in the CDIS by a given country, including its data coverage and compilation methodology).

Background:

The CDIS supports the objective of developing from–whom–to–whom cross border data, contributing to a better understanding of financial interconnectedness.

The survey has been conducted annually since 2009, with revised data released semiannually.

The results, published as an online database, comprise preliminary direct investment positions data for end 2013 and revised data for 2009-2012.

The 2013 survey includes data from 90 economies (compared to 88 economies in the 2012 preliminary results).

New CDIS participants are Sri Lanka and Niger. The IMF will post revised and more comprehensive data in June 2015.

¹ Direct investment is a category of cross-border investment where a resident in one economy has control or a significant degree of influence on the management of an enterprise resident in another economy.