EUROSTAT European Union Statistical Office : The EU continues to be a net investor in the rest of the world

6/2017 - 12 January 2017

Foreign Direct Investment stocks at the end of 2015

The EU continues to be a net investor in the rest of the world

EU and US markets still highly interconnected

Net foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks held by the European Union (EU) in the rest of the world amounted to

€6 894 bn at the end of 2015, up by 14.9% compared with the end of 2014. Meanwhile, investment stocks held by the rest of the world in the EU rose even more strongly to €5 842 bn at the end of 2015 (+22.8%). However, the EU maintained a net investment position of slightly above €1 000 bn vis-a-vis the rest of the world.

Special Purpose Entities (SPEs) resident in the EU played a major role, accounting for 52.5% of the total EU FDI stocks held abroad and for 62.7% of the FDI stocks held by the rest of the world in the EU.

These data, subject to revision, are issued by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. FDI stocks help to quantify the impact of globalisation and measure longstanding economic links between countries (according to immediate counterpart criteria). They provide an indication of the relative importance of a country's economic presence abroad, or that of foreign partners in the reporting entity, measured in terms of FDI capital.

More than a third of EU FDI stocks held in the USA

At the end of 2015, the United States absorbed 37.2% of the total FDI stocks held by the EU in the rest of the world (€2 561 bn), far ahead of Switzerland (€829 bn or 12.0%), Bermuda (€353 bn or 5.1%), Brazil (€327 bn or 4.7%), China (€288 bn or 4.2%) and Canada (€249 bn or 3.6%).

In the reverse direction, United States' direct investors increased their presence in the EU to €2 436 bn of FDI stocks at the end of 2015 (or 41.7% of total FDI stocks held by the rest of the world in the EU). They were followed by those from Switzerland (€627 bn or 10.7%), the offshore financial centres of Bermuda (€503 bn or 8.6%) and Jersey (€227 bn or 3.9%), as well as Canada (€228 bn or 3.9%).

Share of FDI stocks held by the EU Share of FDI stocks held by the rest in the rest of the world, end of 2015 of the world in the EU, end of 2015

Australia

2.1%

Singapore 2.2%

Mexico

2.3%

Other 24.0%

United States 37.2%

China 2.0%

Curaçao Brazil 2.1%

2.2%

Gibraltar 2.8%

Japan

3.0%

Cayman Islands 3.2%

Other 15.9%

United States 41.7%

Russia 2.5%

Canada

3.6%China

4.2%

Brazil 4.7%

Bermuda

5.1%

Switzerland

12.0%

Jersey 3.9%

Canada

3.9%

Bermuda

8.6%

Switzerland 10.7%

Foreign Direct Investment stocks by partner, end of 2015

Stocks held by the EU in the rest of the world				Stocks held by the rest of the world in the EU
Total		of which held by resident SPEs		Total		of which held in resident SPEs
€ bn	Share	€ bn	SPEs/ Total	€ bn	Share	€ bn	SPEs/ Tot
Total extra EU	6 894	100.0%	3 620	52.5%	5 842	100.0%	3 664	62.7%
Europe (non EU), of which	1366	19.8%	804	58.8%	1241	21.2%	662	53.3%
Switzerland	829	12.0%	564	68.1%	627	10.7%	268	42.7%
Norway	85	1.2%	21	25.3%	76	1.3%	27	35.2%
Gibraltar	71	1.0%	:	:	165	2.8%	:	:
Jersey	60	0.9%	:	:	227	3.9%	:	:
Russia	172	2.5%	99	57.5%	61	1.0%	19	31.5%
Turkey	76	1.1%	17	22.8%	7	0.1%	1	15.1%
Africa, of which	292	4.2%	106	36.4%	25	0.4%	3	13.5%
Egypt	41	0.6%	14	32.8%	0	0.0%	:	:
Maghreb countries	35	0.5%	:	:	3	0.1%	:	:
Angola	36	0.5%	:	:	1	0.0%	:	:
Nigeria	32	0.5%	14	42.7%	4	0.1%	1	20.4%
South Africa	79	1.1%	31	39.2%	12	0.2%	4	31.7%
America, of which	4 085	59.3%	2 351	57.5%	3 855	66.0%	2 608	67.6%
Canada	249	3.6%	164	65.9%	228	3.9%	184	80.8%
United States	2 561	37.2%	1 417	55.3%	2 436	41.7%	1 489	61.1%
Bermuda	353	5.1%	:	:	503	8.6%	:	:
Curaçao	74	1.1%	:	:	120	2.1%	:	:
Cayman Islands	105	1.5%	:	:	189	3.2%	:	:
Mexico	162	2.3%	77	47.6%	35	0.6%	22	62.5%
Virgin Islands, British	40	0.6%	:	:	103	1.8%	:
Argentina	39	0.6%	9	22.8%	2	0.0%	0	24.3%
Brazil	327	4.7%	172	52.7%	127	2.2%	113	88.9%
Chile	42	0.6%	10	23.6%	0	0.0%	:	:
Venezuela	26	0.4%	10	38.4%	2	0.0%	0	20.1%
Asia, of which	874	12.7%	228	26.1%	524	9.0%	237	45.2%
Israel	16	0.2%	:	:	45	0.8%	:	:
Gulf Arabian countries	62	0.9%	:	:	73	1.2%	:	:
China (incl. Hong Kong)	288	4.2%	36	12.6%	115	2.0%	65	56.3%
Japan	88	1.3%	25	28.6%	176	3.0%	35	19.7%
India	51	0.7%	9	16.8%	16	0.3%	12	75.2%
Singapore	154	2.2%	55	35.7%	59	1.0%	35	60.5%
South Korea	50	0.7%	20	39.8%	21	0.4%	1	5.0%
Indonesia	30	0.4%	:	:	-4	-0.1%	:	:
Kazakhstan	43	0.6%	:	:	1	0.0%	:	:
NICs2 Asian countries	40	0.6%	:	:	11	0.2%	:	:
Oceania, of which	169	2.5%	56	33.3%	33	0.6%	8	24.2%
Australia	146	2.1%	40	27.5%	25	0.4%	3	10.8%
Offshore Financial Centres	1 064	15.4%	641	60.3%	1 620	27.7%	1 225	75.6%

The sum of continents does not always equal total extra-EU due to rounding and because of not allocated stocks. The source dataset can be found here.

Geographical information

The European Union (EU) includes Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Maghreb countries include Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. Gulf Arabian countries include Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen NICs2 Asian countries (Asian NICs of the second wave of industrialisation) include Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand. Offshore Financial Centres (OFC) is an aggregate which includes 40 countries. As examples, the aggregate contains European financial centres, such as Liechtenstein, Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man, Andorra and Gibraltar; Central American OFC such as Panama and Caribbean islands like Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and the Virgin Islands; and Asian OFC such as Bahrain, Hong Kong, Singapore and Philippines. Therefore, the countries included in the OFC aggregate are also included in the corresponding continental aggregate.

Methods and definitions

The main methodological reference used for the production of statistics on foreign direct investment stocks is the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s sixth balance of payments manual (BPM6).

Foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks denote the value of the investment at the end of the period. FDI are the category of international investment that reflects the objective of obtaining a lasting interest by an investor in one economy in an ente rprise resident in another economy. The lasting interest implies that a long-term relationship exists between the investor and the enterprise, and that the investor has a significant influence on the way the enterprise is managed. Such an interest is formally deemed to exist when a direct investor owns 10% or more of the voting power on the board of directors (for an incorporated enterprise) or the equivalent (for an unincorporated enterprise). Special Purpose Entities (SPEs) are mainly financial holding companies, foreign-owned, and principally engaged in cross- border financial transactions, with no or negligible local activity in the Member State of residence. Data on FDI held abroad by resident SPEs and by the rest of the world in resident SPEs are only available for some selected partner countries, for the Offshore Financial Centres aggregate and for the Total Extra-EU aggregate.

Revisions and time table

The figures presented in this news release correspond to the latest annual FDI data transmission by the EU Member States. Data for the EU aggregate take into account confidential data and estimates for Member States missing data. This ensures adherence to international standards and exhaustiveness of the EU aggregates. The annual data covered in this News Release will be updated in one year's time when revised data will be transmitted by Member States.

For more information

Eurostat website section dedicated to foreign direct investment statistics Eurostat database on balance of payments and EU direct investments Eurostat Statistics Explained article on FDI statistics methodology

Issued by: Eurostat Press Office:

Vincent BOURGEAIS Tel: [phone]

[e-mail]

ec.europa.eu/eurostat/

@EU_Eurostat

Production of data:

Jean-François YATTIEN-AMIGUET Tel: [phone]

[e-mail]

Marie-Josee KEIFFER-STECKER Tel: [phone]

[e-mail]

Media requests: Eurostat media support / Tel: [phone] / [e-mail]