In Croatia, foreign investments are three and a half times higher than in Serbia

Croatia attracted 1.25 billion dollars in direct foreign investments last year. This data comes from the latest annual report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which again positions Croatia as the most attractive country in the region for foreign investors.

In terms of foreign investment value in 2012, Croatia once again surpassed Serbia, which has seriously competed with it in recent years, writes Jutarnji list.

Foreign investors invested only 352 million dollars in Serbia last year, placing that country at the very bottom among the countries in the region. Alongside Croatia, the highest direct foreign investments were made in Albania (957 million dollars) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (633 million dollars).

For comparison, in 2010, the situation regarding direct foreign investments was much less favorable for Croatia. According to UNCTAD data, only 583 million dollars in direct foreign investments arrived in Croatia that year, while Serbia recorded 1.3 billion dollars at the same time.

In 2010, Croatia had the least foreign investments since the early 90s, making it the worst investment year by far. Record foreign investments in Croatia were recorded in the pre-crisis year of 2008, amounting to 6.1 billion dollars.

According to official data from the Croatian National Bank (HNB), in the first quarter of 2013, foreign investments in Croatia were 460 million euros, leading to the conclusion that this year will be higher than last year, indicating that foreign investors are slowly returning.

However, although Croatia is again a leader in foreign investments among the countries of the former Yugoslavia, it still significantly lags behind other transition countries. UNCTAD calculated that last year, for example, 13.5 billion dollars were invested in Hungary.

Among European countries, the United Kingdom had the highest foreign investments last year, exceeding 62 billion dollars.