Foreign direct investment and prospects for the northern region

This paper's purpose is to review the recent experience of foreign direct investment (FDI) in North East England, and to explore the implications of this for the region's prospective economic development. Foreign-owned plants are reckoned to account for more than half the North East's employment in manufacturing, so that the future economic prospects of the region rest heavily on the performance of this stock of FDI plants. Further, the attraction of FDI continues to be a vital component of the region's economic strategy (One NorthEast, 2005), while the Regional Development Agency (RDA) supports initiatives to both develop and "embed" these plants in the region.