According to a study published by AT KEARNEY consultants, China confirmed in 2003 its preferred destination for foreign investment. For the second consecutive year, China placed Mexico in first place for direct investment from abroad, in front of the United States, which keeps its second place ranking. Mexico made an important breakthrough, going from 9th place to third place. Similarly, Poland climbed from 11th to 4th place, becoming Europe's most attractive country in classification for 2002. Germany fell back to fifth place in 2003. The remaining categories demonstrate the rise of several merging countries to the detriment of the now less well placed industrial countries. They also show Europe's domination by Asia. For example, India climbs to 6th place although in 2002 it was only in 15th place; Russia goes from 17th to 8th place. Malaysia rises to 23rd when it was in a lowly 42nd place in 2002. Several western European countries, on the other hand, have gone down the scale, with the United Kingdom experiencing a fall from 3rd to 7th place, Spain 7th to 10th, France from 5th to 11th, and Italy from 6th to 12th place.