THE UK remains the largest single overseas investor in the US by a wide margin, but other major players have been increasing their foreign direct investment in the world’s largest economy at a faster rate.
These are the findings of the Confederation of British Industry and Eli Lilly’s Sterling Assets report, published today.
The survey shows the UK had $569 billion invested in the US at the end of 2015 –up $43bn on a year earlier – according to the latest available figures from US Department of Commerce sources at the time the report was prepared.
The CBI noted the $569bn figure was “a weighty 18 per cent of the $3.1 trillion of foreign direct investment into the USA”.
It added that the UK’s total FDI in the US was $155bn more than the corresponding figure for Japan, the next-largest investor. The CBI noted the figure for the UK was also in excess of $225bn more than Canada’s foreign direct investment in the US.
The business organisation noted the UK figure “also eclipsed investments [in the US] from the fast-growing economies of China and India, which amounted to less than 1% of FDI”.
However, the CBI added: “Despite this strong showing, [the UK’s] FDI into the USA grew at the slowest rate of the top-five investing countries from 2010 to 2015.”
Highlighting a need to reverse this situation, the CBI said it wanted to see “a commitment to ensure continuity in UK-USA trade and investment ties when the UK leaves the EU”. It also called for “actions to deepen trade and investment which don’t require a free trade agreement - such as mutual recognition of each country’s professional qualifications and greater regulatory cooperation in areas like aviation and financial services”.
And the CBI urged “working together to make the case for free trade at the World Trade Organisation, calling for greater liberalisation in trade in services”.
CBI international director Ben Digby said: “It is a source of great pride and credit to the UK and the USA that our two nations have the largest bilateral trade and investment relationship in the world today.
“Trade is not all about free trade agreements – there is so much we can do now to improve it. The first priority is protecting what we’ve already got.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here