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Investment abroad. By geographical areas

Investment abroad. By geographical areas Catalonia. 4th quarter 2013
Year-over-year variation
Value Absolute % quarter % accumulated
Total 1,295.9 317.2 32.4 -16.4
OECD 1,146.7 823.7 255.0 2.0
European Union (EU-27) 958.5 737.1 332.9 6.7
North America 148.9 136.5 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available 118.2
Latin America 132.8 -225.9 -63.0 -10.6
Rest of America 4.0 -314.8 -98.7 -97.9
Asia and Oceania 28.2 -10.6 -27.3 -47.3
Africa 2.7 2.5 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available -39.4
Tax havens 4.1 1.2 41.3 93.8
Units: Millions of euros.
Source: Idescat, based on data from the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism.
Notes:
- The total is not equal to the sum of the areas shown as some countries are in more than one area.
- Provisional data.
(..) Confidential data, low reliability or not available.
Investment abroad. By geographical areas Spain. 4th quarter 2013
Year-over-year variation
Value Absolute % quarter % accumulated
Total 14,260.2 6,413.6 81.7 43.4
OECD 8,332.5 2,542.2 43.9 19.8
European Union (EU-27) 6,522.0 1,722.6 35.9 26.3
North America 442.5 29.2 7.1 -17.3
Latin America 5,788.5 3,928.2 211.2 49.9
Rest of America 13.7 -322.0 -95.9 -59.6
Asia and Oceania 308.2 173.1 128.2 51.3
Africa 60.7 47.2 350.0 -10.5
Tax havens 63.1 52.8 .. Confidential data, low reliability or not available 63.0
Units: Millions of euros.
Source: Idescat, based on data from the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism.
Notes:
- The total is not equal to the sum of the areas shown as some countries are in more than one area.
- Provisional data.
(..) Confidential data, low reliability or not available.

Last update: March 21, 2014. Revised series on April 12, 2021. Next update: March 20, 2024

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 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.