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The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) revised down its 2012 forecast for global inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) to less than $1.6 trillion. Inflows in the first half of 2012 fell by 8% on a year earlier, to $668 billion. Despite its inflows falling, China became the world’s largest recipient of FDI in the first half of 2012, largely because FDI to America flopped. But inflows to America may perk up: SoftBank, a Japanese telecoms firm, recently bought a $20 billion stake in Sprint Nextel. As investment into rich countries has fallen (by 9.5% in the first half of 2012, compared with the same period in 2011), developing countries now receive over half of global FDI inflows.
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