ABSTRACT
Traditionally, foreign direct investment has been concentrated in a fairly narrow range of industry sectors, with chemicals, mechanical, instrument and electrical engineering, and vehicles dominating in the United Kingdom as in other host developed countries. During the 1960s, foreign direct investment made a substantial contribution towards a reduction in regional employment inequalities, but this trend stopped in the late 1970s with a slightly greater increase in foreign-owned employment in the non-assisted areas. The high proportion of Greenfield foreign multinationals (MNEs) operations in the assisted areas is important, and over time there has been some reduction in inter-regional disparities in the employment contribution of MNEs. Inter-regionally within the British Isles, peripherality and regional policy appear to have had some influence on the nature of multinational subsidiaries. Traditional policies may be less relevant to the attraction of skill-intensive, high technology industries. Raising the status and decision-making authority of MNE subsidiaries remains the major but intractable problem at regional level.
