China received more foreign investment last year than US, says UN

The Chinese economy brought in more foreign direct investment than any other country in the past year, knocking the United States off its top spot.

China raised $ 163 billion in tickets last year, compared with $ 134 billion attracted to the United States, wrote the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in a report released on Sunday. In 2019, the U.S. received $ 251 billion in tickets and China, $ 140 billion.

Overall, the report found that foreign direct investment plummeted globally, as the Covid-19 pandemic led countries large and small to virtually stoppages.

FDI plunged 42% in 2020, to $ 859 billion, a 30% drop even from the depths of the 2009 financial crisis. The economic measure accounts for investments in a country made by people and companies from other countries, such as the construction of a factory or the opening of a satellite office.

Developed countries were hit harder last year than so-called “developing” countries. Investment in the US fell 49%, slightly less than the average for developed countries, 69%.

FDI in developing countries fell by a comparatively moderate 12%. China, included in this list, had a small increase of 4% in its tickets.

The European Union saw a two-thirds decline in FDI, according to the report, with the UK not registering new inflows. The UK was particularly hit by the coronavirus.

China managed to keep the coronavirus under control within its borders last year, despite being the first nation to be hit with the deadly disease.

Strict blockade measures, initial mass tests and an abundance of personal protective equipment have been credited to the relatively low number of deaths in the country.

Since the start of the pandemic, China has had less than 100,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and has suffered about 4,800 deaths from the disease, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The United States, which has a much smaller population, has had almost 25 million cases and more than 400,000 deaths.

Despite China surpassing the US in the flow of foreign direct investment in 2020, the total stock of foreign investment remains much larger in the US than in China, according to data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Other economic data also suggested that China has withstood the pandemic’s impact more quickly than its peers. Beijing reported 2.3% GDP growth in 2020 earlier this month and is expected to be the only major economy to report a positive annual growth rate.

The United Nations report comes a day before China’s President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at a virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum. President Joe Biden is not expected to attend the event.