Foreign direct investment is investment abroad which gives a certain degree of control of assets (a firm, an office, production facilities). Investment that does not provide control, but only gives the right to receive interests or to share in the profits of an enterprise, e.g. investment in bonds or shares, is called portfolio-investment.

Often, multinational or transnational corporations are defined as companies that have made foreign direct investments. But Dicken warns that such a view would be too narrow:

"Because FDI data are based on ownership of assets they do not capture the increasingly intricate ways in which firms engage in international operations through various kinds of collaborative ventures and through the different ways in which they co-ordinate and control production chain transactions."

Peter Dicken, Global Shift (3rd ed.), London (Chapman Publ.) 1998, p.177

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