The United States, Canada, China (including Hong Kong), the United Kingdom and Germany ranked at the top of the Kearney FDI Confidence Index 2024.

This index is compiled from primary data from a Kearney survey of senior executives of the world’s leading companies. 

The survey was conducted in January 2024. 

Respondents include C-level executives and regional and business leaders. 

All participating companies have annual revenues of $500 million or more. 

The companies are based in 30 countries and span all industries. On a disaggregated basis, service sector companies represent 46 percent of respondents, industrials 45 percent and IT 9 percent.

FDI Confidence Index

Recent years have been characterized by rising geopolitical tensions, which will further intensify due to the onset of conflict in the Middle East in Q4 2023, the impact of climate shocks and high levels of technological disruption. 

At the same time, global growth has been anemic, reaching only 3.1% in 2022 and falling to 2.7% in 2023. 

Kearney said a further decline is expected in the current year, with global growth forecast at 2.4 percent. 

However, there are some positive economic indicators. Inflation is falling around the world, the US economy is doing much better than expected and Asia remains the piston of global growth.

Although our survey was conducted in the field in January 2024, it appears that investors were guided in their responses by this positive economic news and focused less on the negative ones.

World economy

In fact, respondents showed (somewhat surprising) signs of optimism. A surprising 88% said they planned to increase their FDI in the next three years, 6% more than last year.

Furthermore, 89% stated that they considered FDI more important for the profitability and competitiveness of their companies in the next three years, compared to 86% last year.

And the level of net optimism about the global economy increased markedly, by an impressive seven points.