Trying to figure out why countries are able to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) is getting more complicated.
The results of the 2019 A.T. Kearney Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Confidence Index, the latest edition of the annual executive survey that ranks the countries likely to attract the most investment in the next three years, is filled with paradoxes, according to the authors.
Developed markets dominate the 2019 rankings, even as investors worry about rising political and economic risks within these markets.
In frontier and emerging markets, average scores increased, yet not enough for more than a few to rank in the top 25.
Cities play an increasingly important role in FDI decisions even in an era of rising nationalist sentiments.
And despite investors consistently telling us in recent years that they plan to increase their levels of FDI, recorded levels of FDI fell once again in 2018. All told, these paradoxes at the global level also create some seemingly counterintuitive results in the Index rankings.
