Press Release No. 11/271

Press Release: IMF Expands Foreign Direct Investment Coverage to 84 Economies

July 7, 2011

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) today released new and updated results from its Coordinated Direct Investment Survey (CDIS), the only worldwide survey of foreign direct investment positions. The results, published as an online database, cover investment positions as at end-2009 for 84 participating economies, 12 more than the preliminary release in December 2010 (see Press Release 10/510). The new participants are Azerbaijan, Bhutan, China P.R.: Mainland, Ghana, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Mauritius, Moldova, Paraguay, Russian Federation, and Samoa.

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. This category of investment is of large and growing importance, increasing the need to improve data about it.

The database, available publicly at http://cdis.imf.org and through IMF elibrary, presents detailed data on “inward” direct investment (i.e., direct investment into the reporting economy) cross-classified by economy of investor, and data on “outward” direct investment (i.e., direct investment abroad by the reporting economy) cross-classified by economy of investment. All participants in the CDIS provided data on their inward direct investment and 59 participants also provided data on their outward direct investment. The CDIS database contains breakdowns of direct investment position data, including, in most instances, separate data on equity and debt positions.

The IMF also released a number of new tables, including “mirror” data for all economies (i.e., data on direct investment positions obtained from counterpart economies’ data), which may then be compared to an economy’s own estimates vis-à-vis the counterpart. Derived data often are useful in highlighting data gaps or errors, and therefore also where follow up efforts may prove beneficial.

The survey will be conducted annually, with revised data released semi-annually, and country participation and geographical detail is being broadened over time.

The creation of the CDIS database is a collaborative effort by the IMF and its interagency partners—including the European Central Bank, Eurostat, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development— to facilitate improvement in the quality of direct investment data worldwide. The IMF is grateful to its interagency partners and, especially, to participating economies for their strong support.