RIVERSIDE — This summer, five UC Riverside School of Business Administration MBA students will help to prepare the first ever study of foreign direct investment in Riverside County.

The student interns will be working with officials at the Office of Foreign Trade at the Riverside County Economic Development Agency to count the number of foreign owned businesses in Riverside County, the cities and industries with the largest concentrations of businesses and how much tax revenue is associated with them.

"This is an excellent example of how the economy of the region benefits directly by having a world class research university and business school located in its midst," said David Stewart, dean of the UC Riverside School of Business Administration.

Stewart, who will serve as the students' faculty advisor on the project, will attend a ceremony at 9 a.m. June 29 at the Riverside County Board of Supervisors' chambers at the County Administration Center, 4080 Lemon St., Riverside, at which Marian Ashley, the board chairman, will sign an agreement with the nation of Japan to conduct the study.

The MBA students, who are all enrolled in MBA programs at the UC Riverside School of Business Administration, will also be introduced at the ceremony. The students are Keerthi Madhav Rasineni, Yasar Numan Aksanyar, Cong "Steve" Zhou, Rajan Garg and Jamie Morgan Lacy.

Zhou, who earned his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Jilin University in China, hopes to combine business and chemistry after graduating from UC Riverside with an MBA in June 2011. He's excited to start the internship.

"I think it will be very valuable because it's not only local business related, but related to international trade, and this could contribute to the development of our community," he said.

Tom Freeman, commissioner of the Riverside County Economic Development Agency's Office of Foreign Trade, said the study will enable economic development professionals in the public and private sector to work more closely with foreign investors to create jobs and investment in Riverside County. He looks forward to working with the students from the UC Riverside School of Business Administration.

"These young men and women live up to the reputation of UCR and the business school," Freeman said. "They have everything we need to make this very important program successful."

This agreement with G-8 member Japan and the County of Riverside represents the first time a G-8 member and county have agreed to conducting a significant study on foreign direct investment. The project is expected to bring a number of nations to the table to work on the study.

Study sponsors include UC Riverside, the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership, Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce and The Press-Enterprise. The study will be coordinated through the Japanese Economic Ministry and the Riverside County Economic Development Agency's Office of Foreign Trade.