Justification for a No Material/Nonsubstantive Change

JUSTIFICATION

The data collected on the BE-15 Annual Survey of Foreign Direct Investment in the United States provide a variety of measures of the overall operations of foreign-owned U.S. affiliates. The data are needed to measure the size and economic significance of foreign direct investment in the United States, measure changes in such investment, and assess its impact on the U.S. and foreign economies.

This request is for a minor revision of a currently approved collection. As a part of the “Build it here” initiative of the Department of Commerce, BEA expand the level of detail provided on the activities of multinational enterprises (AMNE) by revising the BE-15 survey forms to include the following state-level data items – gross book value of property, plant and equipment; commercial property; and manufacturing employment. These data items were previously collected but were eliminated from the survey in 2008.

The revision will increase the respondent burden hours by about 5 percent. The estimated respondent burden for this collection is 81,775 hours; the estimated respondent burden for the previous (2013) survey is 77,825 as currently shown in the inventory maintained by OMB. Only large and medium sized respondents, U.S. affiliates with total assets, sales or gross operating revenues, or net income greater than $120 million, would be affected by the revision.