Geneva, Switzerland, 10 Jan – Brazil was the destination for the second largest amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the world in 2007, according to a document published Tuesday in Geneva by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The net volume of FDI received by Brazil is expected to have doubled in 2007 (rise of 99.3 percent) in relation to the previous year and totalling US$37.4 billion.

The forecast is different from that of the Brazilian Central Bank, according to which the total for the year is expected to be US$35 billion, with figures from January to November showing an accumulated total of US$33.37 billion.

According to UNCTAD’s economists, most of the investment received by Brazil were made in order to increase industrial production.

The country in which FDI saw the biggest rate of growth was the Netherlands, where it rose from US$4 billion in 2006 to US$104.2 billion last year, which was a rise of 2,285 percent.

The rise is due to the sale of the Dutch ABN-Amro bank to Spain’s Santander, for US$98.5 billion.

In 2007 FDI all over the world totaled US$1.5 trillion, with the United States as the biggest receiver with US$192.9 billion and annual growth of 10 percent.

The United Kingdom received the second largest amount of FDI in the year estimated at US$171.1 billion, or 22.6 percent more than in the previous year and China received 3 percent less foreign investment than in the previous year, totalling US$67.3 billion. (macauhub)