Virginia Economic Review

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a sometimes overlooked, but vital, cornerstone of the U.S. economy. Investments from overseas create high-quality, skilled jobs that pay higher-than-average wages. In 2022, foreign direct investment to acquire, establish, or expand U.S.

When Dutch secondary packaging solutions provider BluePrint Automation decided to open a U.S. location in 1987, the company chose a site in Chesterfield County near Richmond, due in part to the regional talent market and multiple nearby ports that could facilitate importing.

When Ryan Buzzy was a child, his passion was to take radios apart to see how they worked. At 25, he’s not a kid anymore, but his passion for seeing how things work never changed.

Dennis Meseroll is co-founder and executive director of Tractus Asia Limited, a global foreign direct investment advisory firm based in Thailand that specializes in advising and assisting companies with investment and location decisions in Asia.

Foreign companies looking to invest in Virginia go through the same considerations as their domestic counterparts — site evaluation and selection, workforce availability, and logistical issues, to name a few.

How much does Dutch aviation and aerospace giant Airbus value Washington Dulles International Airport? Enough to pick nearby Loudoun County as a center of its U.S.-based spare parts distribution operations not once, but twice.

Jasjit Singh is the executive director of SelectUSA, a U.S. government program housed within the Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration that works to attract foreign direct investment to the United States.

The LEGO Group’s new manufacturing facility in Chesterfield County is designed to support the company’s sustainability ambitions. From building practices to construction materials to operating functions to landscaping, the LEGO Group’s only U.S.

The word is out that Pulaski County is a “center for international business,” says Jonathan Sweet, administrator for the western Virginia county. Among the 33,000 people who call Pulaski County home is a large community of expatriates hailing from countries around the world.

In 2020, roughly 12 years after Volkswagen relocated its North American headquarters from the Detroit area to Fairfax County, the company faced a choice. With the end of the lease on its Herndon office space looming, would it move to Atlanta, where its Porsche subsidiary is located, or another city?

Ambassador Alexander Yui took over as the Taiwanese representative to the United States at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO) in December 2023.

A Conversation With Ambassador Mark Brzezinski Ambassador Mark Brzezinski has served as the U.S. ambassador to Poland since 2021. He previously served as the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden from 2011–2015.

Peter Beck is CEO, CTO, and founder of Rocket Lab, a private space company with commercial launch sites in New Zealand and Wallops Island on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

The age of autonomous vehicles has arrived. Autonomous shuttles, cars, farm equipment, mining equipment and trucks, on-highway trucks, and construction equipment will be here soon or are already commercially available.

Denbigh High School's Aviation Academy is a Top-Flight Launch Pad for Rising Talent Attitude Equals Altitude That’s the philosophy at Denbigh High School’s Aviation Academy in Newport News in Hampton Roads, a nationally recognized STEM site designed to put no limits on how high students can soar.

With Wing, Google Pioneers Drone Delivery in Virginia On a gravel lot just off of Welcome Street in Christiansburg in Montgomery County, an array of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) recharging pads is flanked by office trailers and shipping containers.

Dale Nash is CEO and executive director of Virginia Space, the owner and operator of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), at Wallops Island on Virginia's Eastern Shore.

On a bright, early morning in the Mojave Desert in November 2021, test pilot Nils Larson will climb into a 97-foot-long airplane resembling something out of “Star Wars.” The nose, from tip to the single-seat cockpit, will be as long as the rest of the aircraft.