Foreign direct investment (FDI) consolidated its upward trend in 2018, and saw gross growth of 31.6% and net growth of 54.7% since the same period in 2017.

Gross investment was 52.8 billion euros, and net investment was 43.67 billion euros. These figures are the highest on record since data started to be compiled on direct investment.
 

A comparison of these data with the average for the last five years shows that gross investment was up 48.9%, and net investment 64.8%, confirming the upward trend in investments in this period.

However, it must be underlined that this very significant increase is partly due to a single share acquisition transaction for a total of 14.33 billion euros, although even excluding this transaction, foreign direct investment still enjoyed significant growth of 18% gross and 44% net.

It is also worth noting that there have been nine transactions this year worth over 1 billion euros.

Productive foreign investment in Spain, discounting foreign securities holding companies (ETVE), have seen a sharp rise of 71.2% in gross terms (to 46.83 billion euros), and an even greater growth of 153.3% in net terms (to 39.75 billion euros).

2018 marked the end of the trend of slow growth —and even slight falls— in investment with a substantial upturn in foreign investment in Spain.

It should be noted that the analysis of investments in such short time periods is highly volatile as the figures can be distorted by a single transaction.

The main source of information for the quantitative analysis was DataInvex (Spanish Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism).