The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) confirmed in its latest report that Mexico foreign direct investment (FDI) reaffirmed its position as one of the most attractive in the first half of 2025. According to the organization’s document “Foreign Direct Investment Flows in the First Half of 2025,” the country is in the top five of the main recipients worldwide with USD 34.265 billion in FDI. The amount reflects that Mexico remains the most relevant among the receiving economies in America, underlined by reinvestment in profits.
Mexico foreign direct investment improves its standing: OECD
The OECD’s report was issued amid a scenario of global economic uncertainty, where trade growth is at a low level, interest rates are at their highest in more than a decade, and geopolitical conflicts continue to take place. In this situation, Mexico’s FDI has stood out by maintaining an important level of activity. “Global growth in the first half of 2025 was hampered by weakening trade, a high level of interest rates, and continued geopolitical tensions. The outlook remains highly uncertain, as many countries continue to struggle with high inflation, higher public and private debt, and tighter financial conditions, while China remains under pressure,” the OECD explained.
The organization’s report confirmed that worldwide FDI was stable in the first half of the year, reaching approximately USD 663 billion. This result was little change from the prior years, given the fact that global economic conditions had not encouraged large movements of capital in or out of borders. However, within this context, the OECD pointed out how the distribution of global flows had changed among countries.
Mexico Ranks Fifth in the Global Recipients of FDI
In this way, what the OECD described was a landscape of flows where the most favored economies had been mainly those that registered an important internal reinvestment or strong industrial performance. In the general ranking, the countries that would be the preferred ones among investors would be the United States, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and Canada. In this list, the United States is in first place, with USD 149 billion; Brazil, in second place, with USD 38 billion; the United Kingdom, in third, with USD 37 billion; and Canada, in fourth, with USD 36.869 billion. Rounding out the first five is Mexico with USD 34.265 billion. This way, the Mexican economy was above other large economies in Europe and Asia.
Mexico’s profit reinvestment
In this regard, what is notable about Mexico’s position is the origin of its FDI inflows. For the OECD, the main characteristic of the Mexican economy is that its FDI is mainly explained by profit reinvestment. This means that Mexico’s FDI was driven not by capital injections from abroad but by local companies that are already in the country and that decided to reinvest the profits that are made here rather than returning them to the country of origin.
This situation is described in OECD as a general trend by which a large part of the Mexican FDI was made up of profits reinvested by the same companies that were operating here. The sectors in which this situation is seen would be manufacturing, automotive, aerospace, and electronics. In all of these, Mexico continues to be very competitive as a production and export platform and is the main destination of large companies.
Mexico’s FDI and other countries
In this sense, the OECD report showed that this process is not something unique to Mexico, since in other economies of similar size, it is also notable that the main driver of investment has been the profit reinvestment by the companies themselves. Germany and France are OECD members, where these figures would be more important in relative terms. In this case, it is noteworthy that the German economy, and even France to a lesser extent, has registered better FDI figures than Mexico.
For the OECD member countries, global FDI increased by 8% to USD 249 billion in the first six months of 2025. According to the OECD, most of the FDI increases in 2025 resulted from intra-company loans, or intercompany lending within multinational groups of companies. Reinvested profits also made a significant contribution, especially in Mexico, Germany, and France.
On the other hand, total cross-border M&A values declined in both developed and emerging markets. Fewer transactions were carried out in each case compared to the previous year. While developed market M&A activity softened somewhat, that of emerging markets was particularly affected. M&A activity in these markets also tends to be more sensitive to financial conditions, commodity prices, and exchange rates.
As the OECD itself points out, some sectors have registered positive peaks. Among them, investment in green technologies in advanced economies, with investments in clean energy, electric vehicles, and charging infrastructure, or infrastructure for the development of artificial intelligence, is reaching record levels. However, these peaks are still limited given the drop in FDI inflows into new projects around the world.
OECD’s Outbound FDI
The OECD data reveal that between these organizations’ member countries, outbound foreign direct investment fell 19% during the first half of 2025. The sharpest declines in overseas investments were recorded in Canada, Australia, and Sweden, according to OECD data, which cited weaker domestic savings and changes in corporate investment priorities as a result of market uncertainties. In contrast, France was the only other major developed economy to increase its outbound FDI in the first half of 2025.
The OECD report indicated that Japan was the world’s largest source of FDI during the first half of 2025, with USD 64 billion invested abroad. It was followed by France, with USD 49 billion. Third place in the world’s major economies’ FDI sources was for the United States with USD 26 billion. The report also noted that Japanese corporations have continued to expand abroad despite the higher cost of financing and lower domestic growth. This is due to their long-term strategic planning horizon.
Mexico maintains a favorable long-term FDI performance
As the OECD itself notes, Mexico foreign direct investment data shows that the economy’s good performance in this indicator in the short, medium, and long term will be maintained. In this sense, a context such as the current one, with a greater desire on the part of large companies to maintain or increase investments in the countries where they are located, will only have a positive impact on Mexico. This is because these companies have in the national space a geographically strategic location, with excellent infrastructure and a wide network of free trade agreements that allow them to supply not only their main market but also other destinations.
For Mexico, factors such as its location, the value of free trade agreements or the vast number of people with a good academic and professional training have been determining factors to ensure a high performance in terms of receiving foreign direct investment. In addition, the work carried out in recent years in infrastructure or energy has been another key element. The prudent management of macroeconomic policy, with monetary and fiscal policies that have allowed, among other things, to contain inflation expectations in a context of global shocks, has been another characteristic that has allowed Mexico to remain a safe haven for investors.