Foreign Direct Investment in Croatia 1.7 Billion Euros

Foreign direct investment in Croatia in the first nine months of last year amounted to 1 billion and 699 million euros, of which the largest part, around 1.38 billion euros, related to investments in two sectors – wholesale trade and trade mediation as well as banking, according to preliminary data published by the Croatian National Bank.

The central bank does not provide year-on-year comparisons in its statistics on foreign direct investments, but data on these investments from the balance of payments shows that foreign direct investments in the first three quarters of last year were 28.2 percent lower compared to the same period in 2008. According to preliminary data from the HNB, in the structure of foreign investments in the first three quarters of last year, 996 million euros related to other investments (which include trade credits, loans, and currencies and deposits), around 560 million euros were equity investments, and slightly less than 148 million euros were retained earnings. By sectors, in the first nine months of last year, foreign direct investments were dominated by investments in wholesale trade and trade mediation amounting to 707.5 million euros, and financial intermediation, excluding insurance and pension funds (i.e., banking) with an amount of 677.5 million euros.

Only in two sectors did foreign direct investments in the three quarters of last year exceed one hundred million kuna – in wholesale trade (109.1 million euros) and in the extraction of oil and natural gas (105.9 million euros). By countries of origin, investors from the Netherlands (839.1 million euros), Austria (501.9 million), and Luxembourg (135.8 million euros) predominated. The central bank’s statistics show that in 2008, foreign direct investments in Croatia amounted to 4.19 billion euros, and total investments from the beginning of 1993 to the end of September last year amounted to 23.6 billion euros.

During this period, the most investments were made in Croatian banks (8.4 billion euros), followed by wholesale trade and trade mediation (2.5 billion), and with more than one billion euros, the chemical industry (1.6 billion), production of oil derivatives (1.4 billion), postal and telecommunications (1.3 billion), real estate business (1.2 billion), and retail trade (1.07 billion euros). Over more than 16 and a half years, investors from Austria (6.3 billion euros), the Netherlands (4.1 billion), Germany (2.7 billion), Hungary (2.1 billion), and others have invested the most in Croatia. Croatian investors, on the other hand, invested more than 3.9 billion euros abroad from 1993 to the end of September 2009, of which they invested 830 million euros in the first three quarters of last year, according to HNB data. (H)