Posted on 09/22/2004 10:35:07 PM PDT by Destro
Time is GMT + 8 hours Posted: 23 September 2004 0213 hrs
China overtakes United States as top destination for foreign investment
GENEVA : China overtook the United States as a top global destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2003 while the Asia-Pacific region attracted more investment than any other developing region, a UN report said.
China's strong manufacturing industry helped the country attract FDI last year worth 53.5 billion dollars, compared with 52.7 billion in 2002, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said in its annual report on investment flows.
Meanwhile, foreign investment in the United States, traditionally the largest recipient of such money, plunged by 53 percent last year to reach 30 billion dollars, the lowest level in 12 years, according to data from UNCTAD's World Investment Report 2004.
Flows to the Asia-Pacific region as a whole rebounded over the year to 107 billion dollars from 94 billion in 2002 driven by strong economic growth and a better investment environment, the agency said.
China was expected to continue to attract foreign companies, analysts said.
"According to our analysis, FDI in China has not peaked although their economic growth rates have fallen," UNCTAD economist James Zhan told journalists.
The outbreak of deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Disease (SARS) only had a marginal downward effect on investment activity as Asia emerged from the decline in foreign investment it had experienced since 2001, the report noted.
"Prospects for a further rise in foreign direct investment flows to Asia and the Pacific in 2004 are promising," UNCTAD's Deputy Secretary General, Carlos Fortin, said in a statement.
But the distribution of the new wealth was uneven across the region, with most of the money -- 72 billion dollars -- concentrated in north-east Asia.
Flows to south-east Asia rose 27 percent to 19 billion dollars, while the south merely received six billion dollars in FDI.
Resource-rich central Asia recorded 6.1 billion and 4.1 billion dollars flowed into the west.
The manufacturing sector remained the dominant factor that pulled investment into China, but a rise in investment in the services industry was noted elsewhere in line with the global trend, UNCTAD said.
Services, including finance, tourism, telecommunications and information technology, formed a growing proportion of foreign direct investment stock in the region -- up to 50 percent in 2002, the most recent figure available, from 43 percent in 1995, UNCTAD said.
UNCTAD said the growing tendency to shift some business activities overseas to places where labour costs are low but the workforce is skilled helped to raise the region's profile.
Asian companies were also growing in power and reach as investors in other regions, according to the Geneva-based agency.
China and India were joining Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan as sources of foreign direct investment, it said.
Asian firms, such as Hutchinson Whampoa of Hong Kong, Singapore's Singtel and Samsung of South Korea, again dominate the UNCTAD list of the top companies from the developing world.
- AFP
My argument against so called free trade is @ 97.
I cannot believe that your typical protectionist did not wail that Samsung outsourced the following jobs to the United States.
Austin, TX, May 2, 2003 - Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world’s leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced plans to expand its Austin facility to become one of the most advanced semiconductor plants in the United States through a three-year investment in cutting edge equipment and facility upgrades. Samsung Austin Semiconductor currently produces 128 and 256-megabit DRAM memory chips, most commonly found in home computers and workstations.
Source
sounds like the new Japan.
That's great, but the article we are discussing on this thread is that China has overtaken America as the beneficiary of this type of investment.
BTW I do not argue for protectionism, but rather that the US government work to make this country more competitive, and hold other countries to the trade agreements they make. IE Tariffs are a necessary evil to respond with when trading partners subsidize their currencies. Don't you agree?
We have a pretty crappy record regarding our ability to stick with our end of a trade agreement's terms so perhaps we should remove the timber from our own eye here. We also do our fair share of subsidization.
Who should be making us more competitive, government? How about ourselves and our country's own business owners. I do not trust an economy in the sole hands of the government...government does nothing with efficiency in mind.
If you believe we are a democracy, the people are the government. IE demanding a NRST is a start.
Ronald Reagan and even Adam Smith himself were free trade advocates.
Ergo, either Reagan and Smith were Marxists, or your dilettantish offerings in the economic section of this marketplace of ideas are just as worthless as your foreign policy offerings.
As for tariffs, we could stop taxing U.S. corporations on their world-wide income (nobody else does) with the same result, and none of the baggage.
I'm for stopping taxation on corporations period.
Holy crap, I cannot believe that you resorted to that. I know this but by you reasoning, then, it was OK for the legislators of the era to collectively agree with FDR and establish "The New Deal". After all, it was the government and the government is us, right?
How about we either argue protectionism - like you originally started off doing - or you concede that maybe the "traders" make some points that are difficult to refute.
So, with that said, was the NRST statement of yours a diversionary change-up that allows you to spin your way out of the line of debate, or, was it something else. By the way, I do believe the NRST sound pretty darn good about now. I do, however, believe in a solution that I've developed and linked to on my FreeRepublic "homepage".
He was at heart a proponent of free trade.
Our trade policy rests firmly on the foundation of free and open markets. I recognize ... the inescapable conclusion that all of history has taught: The freer the flow of world trade, the stronger the tides of human progress and peace among nations.
Examining Reagan’s Record on Free Trade
by Sheldon Richman, June 21, 2004
The following article originally appeared in the May 10, 1982, issue of The Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones and Company, Inc.
Hardly anyone was surprised when the Reagan administration imposed quotas on sugar imports last week. This is at once remarkable and understandable. It’s remarkable because Mr. Reagan wants to be known as a free-trader. Indeed, he lists as heroes some of history’s foremost free-traders: Frederic Bastiat, Richard Cobden, Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek, all of whom would find import quotas odious.
And yet the blasé response is understandable because the imposition of quotas is consistent with the Reagan record and the neo-mercantilism of his predecessors (he had already raised the basic tariff on sugar imports and imposed a new import fee). Historians certainly weren’t surprised; the Republicans are the traditional party of high tariffs.
That way you can pretend to be part of a discussion without having to actually understand the issue.
Trade protectionism is for the weak of spirit and mind. If our producers can't compete fairly, our government has no business subsidizing their inefficiency with our consumer's money. We've got the most productive workforce on the planet, that is reason enough to remove as many barriers to free trade as we can.
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