Catalonia, 4th region in Europe in attracting foreign investment in 2015

• • The foreign investment figures for Catalonia hit 5.224 billion euros according to FDI Markets
• • This volume of investment is only surpassed by those of London, Scotland and Moscow

In 2015, foreign investment in Catalonia totaled 5.224 billion euros, the highest ever, putting Catalonia fourth among regions in Europe for the volume of foreign investment attracted last year, according to FDI Marketsof the Financial Times group.

With this investment volume, Catalonia is only surpassed by the London area, Scotland and the Moscow area, and is up from 16th in 2014 to 4th, ranking ahead of countries like Turkey and Ireland. In fact, Catalonia was the top region in Western Europe last year in volume of foreign investment, ahead of places like the Netherlands and France.

Sources inside the Catalan government, which published the figures, highlight that foreign investment shows confidence in the country and its perspectives for the future, valorizes Catalonia’s assets and acts as a driving force for the country linked to entrepreneurial tradition, talent and creativity, and a consolidated ecosystem of innovation and research.

In this regard, over the 2014-2015 period Catalonia Trade & Investment carried out 112 investment projects with multinational companies in Catalonia. Of these foreign investment projects, 38.4% were greenfield projects, meaning they involved multinational corporations not previously established in Catalonia. Investment in ICT was especially noteworthy (25.8%), followed by that in the automotive sector (15%), services (8%), and agrifood, electronics, biotechnology and chemicals (5.3% each), metallurgy (4.5%) and textiles (4.5%).

The United States leads the ranking in number of foreign investment projects for the 2014-2015 period, with 16.9% of the total, followed by France (11.6%), Japan (8%), China (7.2%), Germany (5.3%) and Switzerland (5.3%).

NOTE ON FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN CATALONIA AND CATALAN INVESTMENT ABROAD 2015