All Foreign Investment Isn't Through Acquisitions

Despite all the excitement over the just-approved foreign acquisition of Anheuser-Busch by Belgium-based Inbev, all foreign investment doesn't come through acquisitions.  A healthy chunk of it is through Greenfield investments - spending to build a plant or factory from the ground up.  Witness the just-announced decision by Volkswagen of Germany to build a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  The facility is to begin production in early 2011 and will initially build a midsized sedan developed for the U.S. market.  Volkswagen is expected to invest around $1 billion and create 2,000 jobs when its assembly plant is up and running.  OFII has done a summary of the top job-creating foreign investment Greenfield announcements in the United States for 2007 (and those states that got the most of it), in a new report, "The Impact on the U.S. Economy of Greenfield Project by U.S. Subsidiaries of Foreign Companies."