Special Features
GCC: Second Biggest Foreign Direct Investor In EU In 2008: Eurostat
Foreign Direct Invvestments (FDI) from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) into the 27-member European Union leaped from 2.3 Billion (BN) euro in 2007 to a massive 63.2 billion euro in 2008, according to a report by the EU’s statistical office Eurostat.At the same time, EU investments in the GCC went up from 4.6 BN euro in 2007 to 18.9 billion in 2008.
The largest GCC investments were made in Luxembourg with 59.3 billion euro. The biggest GCC investor in Luxembourg was the United Arab Emirates with 58.5 billion euro, followed by Qatar with 641 million euro , Saudi Arabia with 134 million euro, Bahrain with 110 million euro and Kuwait with 23 million euro .
The largest investments in the GCC were made by Luxembourg at 12.7 billion euro, followed by Denmark with one billion euro, UK with 867 billion euro, France with 711 million euro and Germany with 236 million euro.
The Eurostat report noted that FDI inflows from outside the EU in 2008 were worth only half of what they had been a year before. The drop would have been even more significant without a major inflow from Gulf Arabian countries to Luxembourg.
FDI from the GCC made up 31.8 percent of total FDI inflows into the EU in 2008, the second-biggest by a regional bloc. FDI worth 65.8 bn from North America (Canada together with the US) to the EU made up 33.1 percent .
The Eurostat figures do not show the sectors in which investments were made but Luxembourg is an important financial and banking centre in Europe.
