Good behavior of foreign investment in Catalonia but with two caveats. It remains far from the best historical records of years ago and has been surpassed by the Basque Country, with which Catalonia falls to third place in the ranking, which is led by Madrid. The cold data show that foreign investment in Catalonia grew by 26% last year, up to 3,883 million euros. It is a growth that doubles that registered in Spain as a whole, but is still far from the 4,420 million in 2018 and the more than 8,000 in 2016. Last year, Catalonia took 11 out of every 100 euros invested in Spain.
This statistic is not always a good indicator to show the strength of one community or another, since many times the investments are mostly allocated to Madrid because it is in the capital where most of the headquarters of the multinationals are located . This is what happened in 2018, when the purchase of Abertis by the Italian company Atlantia and the German firm Hochtief, owned by ACS, sparked investment in Madrid, where it had been headquartered since a few months earlier. Business purchase operations count as investment even if not a single job has been created.
The statistics also do not adequately reflect the investments made from Spain by a foreign company. For example, if Seat, based in Martorell, makes an investment with its own resources, it is not counted. Only if it is carried out with money from the German parent company.
Sources from the Business Ministry, headed by Roger Torrent, state that last year's growth shows the upward trend of recent years, which is "consistent" with the figures from the Generalitat. Company data shows that last year the multinationals AstraZeneca, Microsoft, Florette and Lauda Ultracool, together with 90 others, raised the foreign investment in Catalonia captured by the Generalitat to 620 million euros. It is a slightly higher figure than the previous year (a 1.2% increase).
Economists who have been analyzing foreign investment data for years, such as Joan Ramon Rovira (director of research services at the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce), stress that long periods must be studied to be able to trace trends. In the period 2018-2022, the average investment in Catalonia was 3,673 million, 10.7% of that of the whole of Spain. It is the second receiving community after Madrid in these five years. And the investment in 2022 is higher than the average of these years.
Sources from the Department of Business said that the proof that the data is very volatile is that it is possible that this year the investment will grow exponentially in Catalonia thanks to the 800 million euros of the AstraZeneca hub.
Last year the Madrid community received 21.5% less than in 2021. In addition, the 17,226 million calculated is below the annual average for the period, which is 24,312 million. And last year Madrid took 50.4% of all investment in Spain, compared to an average of 70.8% in the previous five years.
At the aggregate level of Spain, foreign investment exceeded 34,178 million euros during the past year in gross terms, which is the second most important figure reached since we have data, according to the information published by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism. This amount represents an increase of 13.9% compared to 2021.
The most spectacular evolution is that of the Basque Country, which has moved into second place with 5,516 million euros, compared to 1,540 million the previous year. Among the most outstanding operations of the past year in the Basque Country is the sale of the company ITP Aero, manufacturer of aeronautical and industrial engines, to the United States fund Bain Capital for around 1.7 billion euros.
In net terms, that is, foreign investments less liquidations thereof, the figure for investments outside of entities holding foreign securities reached 23,892 million euros, 9.8% more than in 2021.
