We’re looking forward to connecting directly with business investors from around the world at the 2022 SelectUSA Summit! We’ll be in Booth 611 along with the Washington State Department of Commerce and companies and partners from across our region. Schedule an on-site meeting with us.
The SelectUSA Investment Summit is the highest-profile event dedicated to promoting foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States. The Investment Summit plays a vital role in attracting and facilitating business investment and job creation by raising awareness about the wide range of investment opportunities in the United States and enabling necessary direct connections between investors and U.S. economic development organizations (EDOs).
FDI activity into and out of Greater Seattle and Washington State is as follows:
| Greater Seattle | WA State | |||
| Inbound | Outbound | Inbound | Outbound | |
| CapEx | $2.88B | $71.21B | $4.17B | $71.98B |
| Jobs | 8,011 | 289,444 | 9,654 | 295,361 |
| Projects | 112 | 980 | 132 | 1,003 |
Source: FDI Markets (2017-2021)
The United States is still the largest recipient of FDI in the world. The unique aspect of Washington State is that we are home to leading brands such as Amazon, Boeing, Costco, Microsoft, Paccar and Starbucks, which generate significant international economic activity in terms of capex, jobs, and total projects. Over the past 5 years, in fact, Amazon leads the nation in outbound FDI by capex, jobs, and projects created with Microsoft coming in at the #5 spot for total number of projects. The number of outbound jobs Amazon has generated globally is double the size of the #2 spot. For this five-year period, Washington State ranks #2 in the nation for total capex, and #3 for total jobs and projects created with Greater Seattle generating 98% of the state’s outbound projects.
Foreign-owned firms in Greater Seattle and Washington State are as follows:
| Greater Seattle | Washington State | ||
| Japan | 437 | Canada | 741 |
| Canada | 372 | Japan | 701 |
| UK | 324 | UK | 529 |
| France | 208 | France | 373 |
| Germany | 163 | Germany | 271 |
| Ireland | 87 | Ireland | 176 |
| Switzerland | 68 | Switzerland | 120 |
| China | 57 | China | 83 |
| Sweden | 50 | Sweden | 71 |
| Netherlands | 45 | Netherlands | 69 |
| India | 33 | Australia | 67 |
| Korea | 29 | India | 37 |
| Australia | 28 | Mexico | 34 |
| Taiwan | 23 | Korea | 31 |
| Spain | 16 | Taiwan | 26 |
| Norway | 15 | Norway | 21 |
| Mexico | 13 | Spain | 20 |
| Austria | 13 | Austria | 19 |
| Israel | 10 | Israel | 10 |
The SelectUSA Investment Summit draws more than 3,000 attendees and has directly helped generate more than $59 billion in new U.S. investment projects, supporting over 49,000 jobs across the United States and its territories. Historically, the Investment Summit attracts more than 1,200 business investors from approximately 80 international markets who join economic developers from almost all U.S. states and territories.
We look forward to seeing you there!