Fewer projects, bigger bets: What investment promotion agencies must do to build resilience

For three decades, the direction of international trade and investment was clear: falling barriers, lower transport costs and the spread of global value chains drove steady expansion. That model has not disappeared, but it is being recalibrated. In a context of growing policy uncertainty and deepening fragmentation, FDI recovered in 2025 but remains in structural decline since 2015 (FDI in Figures, April 2026). Two broad trends stand out.

Greenfield projects declined markedly between 2024 and 2025 – even as total capex kept rising (fDi Markets 2026). There were fewer projects, but larger ones. Greenfield FDI is increasingly concentrated in a narrow band of strategic, tech-intensive sectors – particularly data centres and digital infrastructure, alongside semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, critical minerals, and space and defence – while investments in software services, renewables, and oil and gas have softened. Digital-intensive sectors account for more than 40% of total greenfield FDI in 2024 and 2025 (OECD, 2026 Investment Policy Framework for Digital Transformation) and top hyperscalers are set to more than double capital expenditure – not limited to cross-border investment – in the years ahead (OECD, Global Debt Report 2026). The map is shifting too: strategic-sector investment is accelerating in the United States and the European Union while easing in China. For IPAs, the game is no longer to take one project at a time – it's about cultivating entire ecosystems around a handful of strategic industries.

Three areas illustrate this transformation particularly well: artificial intelligence (AI), defence and critical minerals. AI investment continues to grow, especially in data centres. This is pushing investment promotion agencies (IPAs) to build new expertise in digital infrastructure, talent and semiconductor supply chains. Defence technologies are expanding alongside growing security concerns and the push for strategic autonomy, while countries increasingly seek to friend-shore critical minerals to strengthen supply chain resilience – though this isn't always feasible, given how concentrated global reserves and processing capacity remain. These developments require IPAs to engage with a far wider circle of partners – including ministries and agencies responsible for digital infrastructure, technology policy, defence, export controls, critical minerals and industrial strategy – than traditional investment promotion ever did.

Uncertainty, not just concentration, now defines the investment landscape. Forward-looking by nature, investment decisions stall under uncertainty, pushing companies to cancel or postpone their projects and place greater value on resilience than efficiency alone (OECD, forthcoming 2026).

Investors are also hedging in how they invest. More capital now comes from the reinvested earnings of firms already established in a market rather than new equity committed for the first time. Meanwhile, supply chains keep regionalising toward politically aligned partners – a shift that reflects less a retreat from globalisation than a reconfiguration of it around security and redundancy.

        1. Fewer, bigger, more strategic

The clearest signal from agencies is a shifting approach: from pursuing as many projects as possible to prioritising fewer, larger and more strategic ones, even at the cost of a lower headline count. This is pulling IPAs into unfamiliar territory. Many are developing scoring tools to assess a project's strategic value – its scale, spillover effects or contribution to broader industrial ambitions. Agencies are also broadening their mandate, working more closely with other parts of government – from national ministries and regulators to regional and municipal authorities – and evolving from investment attraction toward broader investment acceleration.

         2. Resilience starts with diversification

Crucially, resilience starts with diversification, not simply with more investment. It means diversifying across geographies, sectors and value-chain activities, supported by stronger analytical capabilities to identify value-chain strengths, gaps and investable opportunities. This points to a broader consideration for agencies: beyond headline investment volumes, it may be worth examining the type, direction and balance of investment within the value chains that matter most to their economy.

        3. Predictability is now part of the offer

This plays out against a less predictable policy backdrop. After three decades of liberalisation, progress on lowering investment restrictions has stalled, and some governments are adding new ones (Mistura & Rojas Giacobbe, 2025). Industrial policy has resurged – subsidies reached around 1.3% of firms' revenues in 2024, with China providing subsidies far above the levels seen in other major economies (OECD MAGIC Database of Industrial Subsidies 2026).

This more activist policy environment has mixed effects on investment: targeted incentives and subsidies can attract and accelerate investment, while unpredictable or fast-changing restrictions can delay or deter it. Investors can adapt to almost any policy environment – what they struggle with is unpredictability. For IPAs, this reinforces the importance of policy advocacy and close engagement with policymakers to support open, transparent and predictable investment frameworks.

        4. Aftercare as a resilience tool

With greenfield projects scarcer and more contested, keeping existing investors matters as much as winning new ones. Aftercare is becoming more proactive and technical: agencies are building in-house expertise to support investors through transformation, sustainability upgrades and talent needs, and running dedicated retention-and-expansion programmes. The most effective of these programmes double as an early-warning system – surfacing operational friction before it becomes an exit.

The role of investment promotion is therefore changing fundamentally, as IPAs are meeting a more concentrated, uncertain landscape. Success will increasingly depend not on attracting the greatest number of projects, but on attracting investment that strengthen resilience, supports long-term competitiveness and creates lasting economic value. For IPAs, resilience is no longer simply an objective – it is becoming an organising principle of investment promotion.

This blog draws on discussions held during the OECD IPA Network’s mid-year webinar on 17 June 2026, which brought together full member agencies and invited experts to explore how IPAs can build resilience in a turbulent world.