Article amb blocs

Catalonia has a strong presence of companies with foreign capital, a fact dating back to the 19th century. The current trends in direct foreign investment (FDI) indicate that the trust of foreign companies continues. This is confirmed by the most recently published figures of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government and also by the annual data of FDI Markets, the international database on FDI of the Financial Times. The capacity to attract FDI inflows over recent years is even higher than prior to the crisis: during 2003-2008, inward FDI flows in Catalonia stood at an annual average of 2,182 million euros, while in 2010-2014 this figure stood at an annual 3,400 million euros.

The most recent figures for the first half of 2015 published by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness are particularly positive: gross foreign direct investment in Catalonia in the first half of 2015 totalled 1,959.2 million euros ¹, 281.2% up on the same period of the previous year, and represents 23% of the foreign investment in Spain over the same period. As regards the accumulated investment, or stock of Foreign Direct Investment, the Catalan economic holds 23.4% of the tangible fixed assets of companies with foreign capital in Spain and 24.5% of employment in companies with foreign capital.

EU-28, main origin

FDI flows into Catalonia come mainly from EU countries. During 2005-2014, the chief countries of origin of these inflows were the Netherlands, Luxemburg, France, Germany, United Kingdom, United States and Italy. By sector, even though the service sector is the chief beneficiary of FDI (with 55.7% of the inflow over the last 10 years), investment targeted at the industrial sector account for 31% of the total, much higher that the contribution of the industrial sector to GDP.

According to FDI Markets, in the first half of 2015 Catalonia was the third region in Western Europe (and the first in continental Europe) in attracting investment both by volume and by job creation stemming from this investment. In the first half of 2015 the Catalan economy gained 33 investment projects representing an investment of 2,564.7 million euros² and the creation of 4,165 direct jobs.

This strong position in 2015 lends continuity to the trend from previous years. Thus, over 2010-2014 as a whole, according to FDI Markets, Catalonia was also the leading region of continental Europe in FDI measured by created jobs.

¹Note on methodology: Figures on FDI published by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness are affected by a headquarters effect, since investments are often assigned to the territory where the headquarters of the investee company is located, even though the production activity associated with the investment is located elsewhere. The Ministry's figures do not consider certain FDI items such as real-estate investment or reinvested profits.

²Note on methodology: The FDI Markets reports are gathered in a data base that tracks the international investment projects announced by companies and the press and only takes into account the global greenfield investment trends (it does not consider the acquisition of Catalan companies by foreign capital).