Nonsubstantive change justification

JUSTIFICATION

The BE-605 Quarterly Survey of Foreign Direct Investment in the United States collects quarterly data on transactions and positions between foreign-owned U.S. business enterprises and their “affiliated foreign groups” (i.e., their foreign parents and foreign affiliates of their foreign parents). 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. economy.

This request is for a nonsubstantive change of a currently approved collection. As part of the G-20 Data Gaps Initiative II, BEA is adding a question for each debt category (receivables and payables) on the currency composition (U.S. dollars, euros, yen, and other) of intercompany debt. Data collection for the new items would begin with first quarter 2020. BEA tested the new questions with 9 respondents that have large intercompany debt balances and they felt that the questions were understandable and would not cause undue burden.

The revision will cause a negligible increase in the respondent burden hours. The estimated respondent burden for this collection will remain 17,200 hours as currently shown in the inventory maintained by OMB.