In the period 1981-1992, the international flow of direct investments witnessed significant changes which affected their magnitude, geographical orientation, sectorial distribution, forms of investment and sources of financing. This happened in such a way that traditional distribution among industrialized and developing countries was modified as was the capacity for attraction of the different areas in development. In this sense, the main contrast could be seen in the growing importance of East and South East Asia and the decline of Latin American countries which traditionally have been the largest receivers of direct investments within the group of developing countries. The expansive phase of direct investments begun in 1986 threatened to exclude Latin American countries but the establishment of a new framework for the treatment of the problem of external debt -the Brady Plan-, the change in the context of theinternational economy in 1990 and the stability and economic growth of the countries of the region favoured, without a doubt, the recovery of the capacity for attraction for new flows of direct investments regarding Latin American countries.In this way, Latin America registered once again a growing participation in the international flow of direct investments. The evolution of direct Spanish investment in Latin America followed a path similar to that of wider international flows and, after the intense absorption of the first years of the Eighties, the rest of the decade registered a discreet attraction for investors which only began to change course from 1989 onwards with the reestablishment of the new phase of the economic cycle in the countries of the region.