Catalonia maintains its third place in the ranking of communities that attract the most foreign investment. It is the same place it occupied last year on a list led by Madrid. What changes is the second place. If last year it was the Basque Country, in this first half of 2023 it is Valencia, according to data published today by the Ministry of Industry.
Valencia’s good performance comes just when the Volkswagen group has announced the largest automotive investment in Spain in recent years with more than 3,000 million euros for a gigafactory in Sagunt.
In absolute terms, foreign investment in Catalonia fell by 55% in the first half of the year, to 825 million euros. In Spain as a whole there was also a decrease, although it was somewhat more moderate, 26%.
In Spain, foreign investment went from 16,352 million euros in the first half of 2022 to 11,996 million between January and June 2023. The Community of Madrid is the region that leads in attracting funds from abroad in the period, with 7,579 million, 63.2% of the total.
It is followed by the Valencian Community (2,268 million); Catalonia, with a total of 824 million; Murcia (371 million); Basque Country (310 million); Andalusia (155 million); Aragón (119 million) and the Balearic Islands (104 million).
Below 100 million in foreign investment are Castilla-La Mancha (88 million); Galicia (57 million); Canary Islands (37 million); Asturias (34 million); Castilla y León (33.6 million); Navarra (3.6 million); Extremadura (3.5 million); La Rioja (753,000 euros); Cantabria (67,000 euros) Ceuta and Melilla (66,000 euros).
The sector that received the most foreign investment during the first half of the year was “crude oil and natural gas extraction”, with 3.4 billion investment. This is followed by investments in “health activities”, with 1,758 million, and “telecommunications”, with 1,669 million.
The sector that received the most foreign investment during the first half of the year was “crude oil and natural gas extraction”, with 3.4 billion investment.
