Dataset – Foreign Direct Investment

UK business investment abroad (Foreign Direct Investment – FDI) is surveyed annually by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the government department responsible for collecting and publishing official statistics about the UK’s society and economy. The investment figures are published on a net basis, that is, they consist of investments net of disinvestments by a company into its subsidiaries, associate companies and branches. The UK ONS publishes FDI statistics in two forms, a ‘First Release’ followed by a more detailed analysis ‘MA4 - Foreign Direct Investment’.

First Release for 2006 statistics is available through: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/fdi1207.pdf

Description

FDI can be measured in three ways:

‘Net direct investment abroad by UK companies’ – a measure of annual net flows of UK investment money into overseas economies.
‘Net international investment position – direct investment abroad by UK companies’ – a measure of the cumulative value of UK business investments overseas.
‘Net earnings from direct investment abroad by UK Companies’ – a measure of net earnings repatriated from overseas economies.

Source

The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS): http://www.statistics.gov.uk/default.asp. Data are reproduced here under a PSI Licence.

Analysis of statistics has also been undertaken on behalf of JNCC to apportion investment to specific sectors.

Terms and Conditions

Users are referred to The UK Office for National Statistics for terms of use of this information.

Rationale

The Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) surveys conducted by National Statistics (ONS) are designed to measure the flows of investment, earnings from investment and the international investment positions by UK companies’ affiliates abroad (outward) and conversely foreign companies’ affiliates in the UK (inward).

Both annual and quarterly surveys are compulsory, the aggregated quarterly data is published in the Balance of Payments first release. The more detailed annual data (split geographically) are published initially in a first release ‘Foreign Direct Investment’ within 12 months of the end of the survey period and then in greater detail (split geographically, by component and by industry) in an annual business monitor MA4 ‘Foreign Direct Investment’ within 3 months of the first release.

Information is available by component, country and industry, showing:

320 countries and areas
129 industry classifications
31 component question

Key data series by area and main country include:

Net UK FDI investment flows abroad
Net UK FDI international investment positions abroad at year end
Net Earnings from UK FDI investments abroad
Net foreign FDI investment flows into the UK
Net foreign FDI international investment positions in the UK at year end
Net Earnings from foreign FDI investments in the UK

This description of the rationale has been taken from the ONS website

Update Frequency

Annual – early in year.