Tennessee continues to be an attractive place for foreign-owned companies looking to invest in the United States.
In the past decade, the number of foreign-based companies operating in Tennessee has jumped more than 43 percent, according to research by TNECD’s Center for Economic Research in Tennessee (CERT).
Today, 919 foreign-owned companies call Tennessee home. In 2007, there were 640 foreign-owned establishments.
In the last 10 years, companies based abroad have invested more than $18.4 billion of foreign direct investment (FDI) into Tennessee.
Such totals have helped enable Tennessee to top the nation two of the past three years in jobs created through FDI, according IBM-PLI’s Global Location Trends 2016 report.
The 919 foreign-based establishments operating across Tennessee have invested $33.3 billion and employ more than 123,000 Tennesseans.
Tennessee remains one of the top destinations for Japanese corporate investment in the U.S. The Volunteer State ranks third in the nation for Japanese FDI, according to fdiMarkets. Japanese-based companies such as Nissan, DENSO, Bridgestone, Calsonic Kansei, M-Tek are among the biggest foreign-based employers in Tennessee.
Of the 123,00 Tennessee jobs created by FDI, nearly 40 percent (49,104 jobs) were created by Japanese-based firms. That followed by German-based companies, which have invested nearly $5.3 billion and employ 13,855 Tennesseans.
TNECD has continually sought to recruit internationally for new businesses. To accelerate FDI flowing into Tennessee, TNECD has added international offices in Germany, Italy and South Korea. Future offices in China, the United Kingdom and Western Europe are in store.
