Total outward foreign direct investment in food, beverages and tobacco (FBT-FDI), including primary agriculture, amounted to 21.9 billion USD in 2014. Out of these, 13.9 billion USD were invested by developed economies, 8 billion USD by developing economies. While the share of developed economies in total FBT-FDI outflows is thus still substantially higher than that of developing economies, this gap is expected to narrow down progressively. While developed economies invested 5.7 times as much in food, beverages and tobacco as developing economies in 2003-08, this ratio fell to 2.3 in 2009-14.

The sharp increase of developing country FTB-FDI outflows can mainly be explained by a significant growth of Asian FTB-FDI outflows. Developing Asian economies invested an annual average 5.8 billion USD in 2009-14, compared to 2 billion USD in 2003-08. FBT-FDI outflows originating from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) doubled over the same period, from an annual average 0.4 billion USD to 0.9 billion USD, and increased between 2012 and 2014, reaching 1.5 billion USD in 2014. Annual average African outward FBT-FDI increased from 0.1 to 0.5 billion USD.

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