FDI: Foreign Direct Investment (Foreign Direct Investment) is one of the main forms of modern capital internationalization. According to the definition of the International Monetary Fund, FDI refers to an investment that has sustained interests in enterprises operating in countries other than the investor.
The purpose is to have a say in the management of the enterprise.
Multinational corporations are the main form of FDI.
As of 1999, 53,000 multinational corporations had approximately US$3.5 trillion in assets.
Moreover, the investments of multinational companies are mainly among developed countries, and are basically distributed among Japan, the United States, and the European Union.
Japan's early FDI mainly invested in Southeast Asia. After the 1980s, 80% was invested in the United States and 20% in Europe.
It is now China's third largest source of foreign investment.
Since the Asian financial crisis in 1997, foreign investment has slowed down.
Regarding the nature of international direct investment (FDI), some scholars emphasize "business resources", especially the intangible assets of enterprises.
For example, Japanese scholar Hara Masayuki (1992) believes that FDI is the international transfer of special business resources within the enterprise; another Japanese scholar Kojima Kiyoshi (1987) believes that FDI is based on technical expertise in business management.
Some scholars emphasize "control". For example, A.G. Kenwood and A.L. Lougheed (1992) believe that FDI refers to a company in one country setting up a branch in another country, or obtaining control of an enterprise in that country.
Relevant international institutions, government departments and theoretical circles, such as the United Nations Division on Transnational Corporations and Investment, the International Monetary Fund, the WTO, the U.S. Department of Commerce, etc., believe that the fundamental difference between international direct investment and international indirect investment lies in whether to obtain control of the invested enterprise.
, because the intangible assets formed by FDI are in a core position, while monetary capital is in a very secondary position and can only be directly invested. Therefore, FDI not only directly participates in business management, but its direct goal is to obtain control of the invested enterprise.
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Based on this, some scholars believe that “FDI refers to a country or region’s enterprises obtaining part or all of the control rights of foreign enterprises through the international transfer of monopoly advantages (mainly represented by intangible assets), in order to achieve a long-term and highly unified ultimate goal and direct goal.
investment behavior.