Foreword

• Author: Carol S. Carson
• Profession: Director Statistics Department International Monetary Fund

The increasing importance of multinational enterprises in the global economy has stimulated interest in improving the availability, the accuracy, and the comparability of foreign direct investment (FDI) statistics among policymakers, analysts, and statisticians.

Foreign Direct Investment: Trends, Data Availability, Concepts, and Recording Practices notes recent trends in FDI and examines the progress made in moving toward compilation of FDI statistics in accordance with standards established by the IMF and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

This report also reviews international recommendations for the compilation, analysis, and dissemination of FDI data and notes...