Foreign Direct Investment Statistics: How Countries Measure FDI shows progress in recent years in moving toward compilation in accordance with international standards that have been established by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the ...

The increasing importance of multinational enterprises in the global economy has stimulated interest in improving the availability, accuracy, and comparability of foreign direct investment (FDI) statistics among policymakers, analysts, and statisticians. This report 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 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The report also reviews international recommendations for the compilation, analysis, and dissemination of FDI data and notes discrepancies in global balance of payments statistics and in data on bilateral FDI stocks. In addition, the report provides information on selected countries current practices in measuring FDI--on the basis of results from a joint IMF/OECD survey that covered 30 OECD countries and 31 other IMF member countries and was the subject of Foreign Direct Investment Statistics: How Countries Measure FDI 2001, published by the IMF and OECD in 2003.

The OECD Benchmark Definition of Foreign Direct Investment sets the world standard for FDI statistics. It provides a single point of reference for statisticians and users on all aspect of FDI statistics, while remaining compatible with other internationally accepted statistical standards.

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In a complex global production landscape, the quest for measures of economic activity by multinational enterprises (MNEs) has become more pressing. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) statistics, which capture financing aspects of MNEs, have often been used as a proxy for multinational production given their wide availability and cross-country comparability, but concerns that multinational production occurs in different countries than where financial positions are recorded call this practice into question. This paper revisits the main objections to the use of FDI as a proxy for multinational production, explores counterarguments, and provides guidance on the use of FDI statistics to measure multinational production.