Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are investment funds owned and managed by national governments. Such funds currently manage between $ and $ trillion and are expected to grow to over $12 trillion by 2015. This is due to the rapid growth of commodity prices and large trade surpluses in several emerging market economies. During the second half of 2007, interest in SWFs increased as Asian and Middle Eastern SWFs, fueled by surging foreign exchange reserves, invested large sums of capital in . and other Western companies. Policy makers in the United States have raised two broad policy concerns about SWFs: (1) their lack of transparency and (2).
