Obama Administration Highlights Positive Economic Numbers

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The Obama administration is pushing back against GOP claims on the campaign trail, including those of frontrunner Mitt Romney, that the White House’s economic policies are failing.

A report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers released Monday shows foreign direct investment in the U.S. surging with a 49 percent increase in 2010 from 2009 levels in the nadir of the financial crisis.

In an e-mailed statement, President Obama touted his administration’s “open investment policy,” arguing that it has helped spur economic growth and job creation.

“By voting with their balance sheets, businesses from abroad have clearly stated that the United States is one of the best places in the world to invest,” Obama said in the statement.

With a spate of recent reports showing the economic recovery faltering or at least slowing, Obama is focused on highlighting positive economic news and trying to convince voters that his policies will produce results over the long term.

Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the Council on Economic Advisers, said the U.S. remains the beneficiary of the most foreign direct investment of any nation in the world, with a growing number of countries with headquarters abroad seeking business in the U.S. and far exceeding comparable numbers in Great Britain and France.

“It’s clear in the data: the U.S. remains the No. 1 destination for foreign investment in the world and that investment has had a great impact on the economy,” Goolsbee said in a conference call with reporters today.

In 2010 nearly 90 percent of U.S. inbound foreign direct investment was from corporations based in Canada, Europe and Japan, the report said.

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