Direct Investment

© BDI

German companies employ more than four million people abroad. Germany as a business location needs foreign investment. The BDI is committed to safeguarding international freedom of investment and investment protection.

Worldwide investment helps companies develop new sales opportunities on the global market. Companies expand these activities, thus enhancing competitiveness. This simultaneously safeguards and creates jobs in Germany. Three jobs abroad result in an additional job in Germany. In total, German companies employ over four million people in more than 20,000 foreign locations. As a local employer, trainer and tax-payer, German industry strengthens the host countries’ economic and social structures, thus providing incomes and livelihoods for many more millions of people. It gears investment to the OECD Directives for Multinational Enterprises which promotes ecological and social standards abroad.  

The prerequisites for worldwide investment are legal certainty, protection of trust  and equal opportunities. A crucial element of successful engagement abroad is global investment protection. The BDI therefore supports the development of the Bund’s network of agreements on the protection of investment and the further development of investment guarantees. We work actively to safeguard international investment framework conditions. We welcome the commitment at G20 level as regards international freedom of investment. This also applies to foreign direct investment in Germany which is a particularly welcome possibility for the investment we need in Germany as a business location, particularly in times of decreasing liquidity. The BDI therefore opposed the 13th amendment to the Foreign Trade Law through which the federal government would receive an additional right to prohibit foreign direct investment.