Trends in global foreign direct investment flows: facts and challenges for Romania

The paper analyzes the long term trends in world foreign direct investment against the background of world economy dynamics. The findings support the idea that the balance of economic power is changing in the world economy and the countries that own a stable and solid industrial base are at an advantage (a significant example in Europe being Germany). The new trends determined by the economic crisis in the field of FDI refer to the growing percentage of developind and emerging countries in the global flows of FDI and the higher percentage of greenfield investment compared to mergers and acquisitions. As for Romania the conclusions of the paper are moderately optimist as regards the FDI inflows for the period 2012 – 2014. These conclusions are based on both European trends and internal ones and take into account a relaunch of the Romanian economy as well as an increase of the demand in the European markets.