UN survey finds large companies upbeat about investment prospects

Multinational corporations are increasingly optimistic about future investment and are looking beyond the global financial crisis, according to a new survey released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The agency’s annual World Investment Prospects Survey, based on responses from more than 300 of the world’s largest multinational corporations and investment promotion agencies and released yesterday, indicates that global foreign direct investment (FDI) will recovery this year and grow further in 2011-12.

Only 36 per cent of survey respondents were pessimistic about their company’s fortunes in the year ahead, compared to 47 per cent a year ago, UNCTAD noted.

Most corporations were even more upbeat about 2012, and UNCTAD said this suggested that while many companies continue to face short-term problems, the financial crisis that began in 2008 has not structurally shifted their plans for the future.

This apparent increase in optimism has helped encouraged multinational corporations to maintain or even boost their international investment programmes, the agency noted.

The survey also indicated that so-called developing or transitional economies, which have weathered the financial crisis relatively better than many developed economies, are an increasingly attractive destination for FDI, particularly among international companies.