Foreign direct investment into Ireland up 4% last year

Foreign direct investment into the Republic rose by 4 per cent in 2015, a year in which the number of FDI projects into Europe fell by nearly 9 per cent.

With 178 projects valued at a combined $5.5 billion (€ 4.86bn), Ireland was ranked 8th overall for FDI in Europe, according to a new report from fDi Intelligence, a division of the Financial Times.

The UK topped the list for FDI into Europe in 2015 with 974 projects that were valued at $53 billion. This marks a 3 per cent rise on the previous year.

Turkey and Belgium were the countries to see the biggest gains in terms of new projects gained while Germany recorded a 54 per cent decline in FDI. Capital investment in Serbia meanwhile almost doubled to $4.4 billion, helping the company break into the top 10 destinations countries for FDI in Europe for the first time.

Companies from the UK, Germany and France collectively accounted for more than half of FDI projects coming out of Europe, the study shows.

Despite Europe declining as a source of FDI projects, capital investment from the region increased 7 per cent last year to $258.5 billion.

Capital investment

Globally, capital investment increased nearly 9 per cent in 2015 to $713 billion, but project numbers declined 7 per cent to 11,930. The number of FDI-related jobs created grew 1 per cent to 1.89 million.

India replaced China as the highest ranked country worldwide for FDI investment last year, with $63 billion worth of project announced. The US was the highest ranked in terms of number of projects with 1517 recorded in 2015.

Asia-Pacific remains the leading destination for FDI with 3883 projects confirmed last year with a combined value of $320.5 billion. FDI into North America rose nearly 10 per cent with inward capital investment of $68.8 billion. However, project numbers fell 6 per cent.

FDI into Latin America declined by 13 per cent. The number of projects into Africa and the Middle East rose by 0.6 per cent.