Invest in Spain

According to the “World Investment Report 2008” from the UNCTAD, FDI flows arriving in Spain in 2007 amounted to a record figure of 53,385 million dollars. These impressive figures for foreign investment have moved Spain to 7th in the global rankings for FDI reception, up 9 places from 16th last year.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has just published its annual “World Investment Report 2008”, which lays out a comparison between 141 countries on FDI behavior worldwide in 2007.

In 2007 FDI flows arriving in Spain reached a record figure of 43,349 million euros. The investment is an increase of 171.68% in comparison with the previous year and an all-time record. The previous highest figure was in the year 2000.

These impressive figures for foreign investment in 2007 have moved Spain to 7th in the global rankings for FDI reception, up 9 places from 16th last year. Spain’s economy was 4th in the European Union for FDI reception in 2007, up from 8th in 2006.

Worldwide FDI flows in 2007 grew by 30%, to reach a figure of 1.8 billion dollars, smashing the previous record set in the year 2000. The increase was unevenly spread across different geographical regions of the world. Overall however FDI reception behavior was very positive. It increased by 32% in the developed world and by 21% in emerging countries.

The advance in FDI has been propelled by strong economic growth and high business profits in several regions of the world. Reinvestment of profits accounted for 30% of total FDI flows because of the increase in profits of the foreign subsidiaries of companies, especially in developing countries.

The entry of foreign investment in developed countries reached 1.2 billion dollars. The United States was still at the top of the list of countries receiving FDI, followed by the United Kingdom, France and Canada. The EU was the most important regional destination for FDI attracting nearly two thirds of the total investment made in developed countries. In short, FDI flows received by the EU amounted to a total of 804,000 million dollars, 43% more than in the previous year.

A new component of global FDI is the emergence of sovereign funds as direct investors. Despite the fact that the amounts invested by sovereign funds as FDI are still relatively small, they have grown fast over the last few years. 31,000 million dollars of the 39,000 million dollars invested by these funds have been invested over the last three years.