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Foreign Investment. By geographical areas

Foreign Investment. By geographical areas Catalonia. 2023 (p)
Value Variation (%)
Total 4,643.9 18.0
OECD 4,272.5 40.6
European Union (EU-27) 3,786.1 94.3
North America 159.7 -52.8
Latin America 103.1 117.6
Rest of America 8.9 -42.2
Asia and Oceania 113.7 -83.7
Africa 6.1 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available
Tax havens 11.5 -48.1
Units: Millions of euros.
Source: Ministry of Economy, Commerce and Business
Note: Provisional data.
(p) Provisional data.
(..) Confidential data, low reliability or not available.
Foreign Investment. By geographical areas Spain. 2023 (p)
Value Variation (%)
Total 28,214.9 -18.5
OECD 27,022.6 -17.7
European Union (EU-27) 20,199.4 -13.4
North America 1,646.6 -44.6
Latin America 1,379.2 169.1
Rest of America 92.9 -0.3
Asia and Oceania 551.9 -57.0
Africa 91.1 -20.9
Tax havens 85.8 -21.5
Units: Millions of euros.
Source: Ministry of Economy, Commerce and Business
Note: Provisional data.
(p) Provisional data.

Last update: April 3, 2024.

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 Spanish companies
  • holdings of more than 10% in listed Spanish companies
  • setting up or expansion of branches of foreign companies
  • other forms of investment in organisations or contracts registered in Spain (foundations, cooperatives, economic interest groupings), in which invested capital is greater than EUR 3,005,060.52

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.

Data by geographical areas refer to the immediate country of origin of the investment. Immediate country means the place where the direct holder of the investment is resident.

Foreign investment is obtained from official data published by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism 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 Industry, Trade and Tourism for the last 10 years.