Luxembourg, 10/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - According to Eurostat, FDI flows (Foreign Direct Investment) from the EU continued to grow in 2000. Investments made by third countries in the EU Member States rose 27% compared to 1999, and those from the Member States in third countries by 12%. However, the most remarkable increase was that for Intra-EU investments: +50% between 1999 and 2000.
In 2000, the total investments by Member States abroad reached EUR 770 billion of which 60% in Intra-EU flows. As for foreign investments in the Member States, they are high at EUR 620 billion, of which 80% as Intra-EU flows (the strongest expansion since 1998).
Vis-à-vis the rest of the world, the EU remained, last year, a net investor (304 billion in EU investments in third countries, against 125 billion in the opposite direction). The United States remains its privileged partner, since close to half the Extra-EU investments by the Member States were made there and close to 80% of the third country investments in the EU have been made by the United States. Investments by Japan, for their part, remained negligible (1.5% of the Extra-EU flows in 2000).
The United Kingdom and France were, by far, the main net EU investors in 2000. British (EUR 226 billion) and French (187 billion, a 100% increase) investments abroad represented more than half the EU investments abroad. Spain, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden were also net investors. Germany was, on the contrary, the main destination of foreign investments in the EU (mainly from the other EU Member States). In 2000, more than 30% of foreign investments made in the EU were carried out in Germany. To a lesser extent than Germany, the other Member States, net FDI receivers, have been Denmark, Ireland and Austria. Eurostat explains the flows of FDI particularly high for the IEBL (Belgo-Luxembourg Economic Union) by the large number of mergers and acquisitions of holdings situated in Belgium. On the contrary, Italy recorded relatively few flows compared to the size of its economy.