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Investment abroad. By geographical areas

Investment abroad. By geographical areas Catalonia. 3rd quarter 2019
Year-over-year variation
Value absolute % quarter % accumulated
Total 162.9 -4,321.6 -96.4 -87.1
OECD 19.1 -4,382.9 -99.6 -98.1
European Union (28 member states) 6.9 -4,178.2 -99.8 -98.2
North America 1.7 -215.3 .. -98.3
Latin America 78.4 7.3 .. ..
Rest of Americas 0.0 -0.2 -81.8 ..
Asia and Oceania 61.4 54.4 .. 367.0
Africa 14.5 10.4 .. ..
Fiscal paradises 0.0 -0.2 .. ..
Units: Millions of euros.
Source: Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism.
Note: The total is not equal to the sum of the areas shown as some countries are in more than one area.
(..) Confidential data, low reliability or not available.
Investment abroad. By geographical areas Spain. 3rd quarter 2019
Year-over-year variation
Value absolute % quarter % accumulated
Total 2,082.3 -7,523.0 -78.3 -58.7
OECD 1,007.6 -5,482.7 -84.5 -66.8
European Union (28 member states) 457.7 -4,721.3 -91.2 -58.2
North America 376.3 -391.4 -51.0 -37.1
Latin America 722.2 -2,501.3 -77.6 -71.9
Rest of Americas 1.3 -6.6 -84.0 -6.2
Asia and Oceania 480.1 401.4 .. 164.5
Africa 18.2 -21.5 -54.2 -12.7
Fiscal paradises 15.6 7.4 90.0 25.7
Units: Millions of euros.
Source: Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism.
Note: The total is not equal to the sum of the areas shown as some countries are in more than one area.
(..) Confidential data, low reliability or not available.

Last update: December 20, 2019. Next update: March 20, 2020

Annual data

Methodological note

The definition of direct foreign investment basically follows the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund (5th Balance of Payments Manual) and the OCDE (Benchmark Definition).

The data is based on that declared by investors pursuant to Act 19/2003, dated 4 July, on the legal system for capital movements and economic transactions abroad and measures to prevent money laundering, and the regulations that further implement it (Royal Decree 664/1999, Ministerial Order dated 28 May 2001 and Ministerial Ruling dated 21 February 2002). They do not include financing between companies, reinvested profits (save in the case of capitalisation of loans and/or profits) and investment in real estate.

Gross investment includes direct investment declared to the Foreign Investment Registry (FIR) of non-residents which entails:

  • holdings in unlisted companies domiciled abroad
  • holdings in listed companies domiciled abroad (over 10% of capital)
  • setting up or expansion of branches
  • other forms of investment contracts or entities registered abroad (foundations, cooperatives, economic interest groups), in which the invested capital exceeds EUR 1,502,530.26

Excluded from the data are foreign share holding companies (ETVEs). ETVEs are holding companies set up in Spain whose sole purpose is to hold shares in companies located abroad.

Foreign investment is obtained from official data published by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness from the Statistics on Foreign Investment in Spain and Spanish Investment Abroad. The data are provisional, given that in the corresponding quarterly updates, information referring to previous periods is modified as a result of operations which were declared in the last period but carried out prior to this.

For each new period published, Idescat updates and reviews the information published by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness for the last 10 years.

A partir del 27 de novembre de 2014, els indicadors d'inversió estrangera i d'inversió a l'estranger s'adapten per poder oferir la informació per trimestres.

Data are provisional.

See also