it remained at a historically high level, making through European conduit economies', it actu- ally fell by 11% compared to 2023, reaching ply chains like Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, US$1.49 trillion. International project finance^ marily due to tighter financing conditions andries. Cross-border mergers and acquisitions rates and interest rates (UNCTAD, 2025b). past decade. These shifts across all three FDI ed LDCs, where international project finance constitutes a significant share of inbound FDI. Greenfield investment, which focuses on in- ment, escalating geopolitical risks, and evolv- dustrial sectors, also decreased, with the total by 5% to US$1.3 trillion in 2024. Nevertheless, transfers. For tax, financial, political and other reasons, investors often channel funds into special purpose en- tities (SPEs] located in such economies, and then transfer the investment onward to another economy. These activities can artificially inflate or deflate total cross-border investment (Casella et al., 2023). As a result, the FDl statistics for several European economies, such as Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzer- land, are heavily affected by these conduit flows, leading to sharp fluctuations and negative growth in their trade data in 2023 and 2024. Excluding the distortions caused by these flows, global FDl inflows in 2024 would have increased by about US$230 billion (UNCTAD, 2025b). contain a significant debt component, and are mostly concentrated in the infrastructure sector.