Among the year's top projects for both capital investment and job creation was the announcement of planned expansion at Ford Motor Co.'s complex in Hermosillo, Mexico. The company anticipates investing some $2 billion at the plant, first established in 1986.

        In terms of size, logistics facilities loomed large. Fourteen of the top 20 in this category were in Europe, perhaps an indication of ongoing preparations for the new batch of EU accession countries set to take their places at the table in May 2004.
        However, not all the big facilities were way stations. Among the investments were five automotive plants (all in different countries) and two cosmetics plants (Mary Kay in China, Avon in Russia).
        The emergence of Eastern Europe could certainly be seen in the job generation chart, where four of the top projects are from that region, including the top two, both in Slovakia. For sheer job generation, the automotive and services sectors were neck and neck internationally.
        But the top two services projects were not, as one might expect, in India, but in Australia, where General Electric and Computershare are establishing major operations.
        Of the roughly 11,000 cross-border projects tracked by GILD in 2003, more than 1,600 came to the United States. These created more than 180,000 jobs, more than India and China, which benefited from nearly 180,000 and 140,000 new jobs respectively. The success of emerging markets in capturing foreign direct investment should not be ignored.
        "The results from 2003 from IBM-PLI's database show that cross-border investments are still increasing, with a wider range of countries playing a significant role, especially developing and emerging markets," says Roel Spee, longtime director at IBM-PLI. "Western Europe and North America are facing strong competition from these emerging markets, however they still manage to attract a significant portion of these investments, in particular when it comes to higher-value-added investments and activities or market-driven investments."
        The New Plant database numbers tracked by Site Selection publisher Conway Data are just as telling. Of the 250 largest 2003 projects based on capital investment, 170, or 68 percent, were in the U.S.
        Asia, including Australia, garnered the next largest number with 32 of the 250, or 13 percent. Next was Europe (12 percent), followed by Latin America (3 percent) and Canada and Africa/Middle East, each at 2 percent.
        If the trends illustrated here are any indication, it seems globalization works both ways.
        For New Plant database subscription information, contact Julie Clarke at julie.clarke@conway.com. For information on GILD or IBM-PLI, visit www.ibm.com/bcs/pli.