FDI: North America and Asia Show Biggest Inflows

This article is published in collaboration with Statista

by Katharina Buchholz

Since 1990, the volume of foreign direct investments has grown rapidly, with North America and Asia specifically benefiting from large inflows. This is according to the United Nation's World Investment Report published Tuesday. In 2025, more than $1.6 trillion was sent abroad in the form of FDIs, up from just $200 billion 35 years earlier. The biggest shares now arrive in North America at $344 billion and in Asia at $644 billion. China made up a share of $105 billion of Asian inflows, showing how investments into Asia are diversifying while China has been developing into foreign investor rather than an investment destination.

In developing countries, the relative increases in foreign direct investment inflows have been biggest. They are now 20 times their 1990s size in Asia, Africa and Latin America, while for the latter two regions still staying lower on an absolute level. In North America, FDI inflows grew fivefold over that time period, while in Europe, they almost tripled. Other developed economies saw growth by almost 700 percent.

A foreign direct investment is a company establishing a presence in a different country, either by buying a business there or gaining a stake in it, or by building up a new facility in that country. This is often in connection with the transfer of know-how, technology or in the form of a joint venture. It does not refer to making a financial investment in a foreign country that gives the investor no control over a business.

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