Catalonia remains for another quarter as the third community that attracts the most foreign investment after Madrid and Valencia. Last year, Madrid and the Basque Country led the ranking.
According to data published this morning, in the first three quarters of the year, foreign investments in the community rose to 2,087.1 million euros, 24.6% less than in the same period of 2022. This lower arrival of resources is has corrected in the last quarter of the year when investment grew by 27%, up to 1,217.2 million.
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. However, it is not clear that this investment has already been accounted for in the statistics published by the Secretary of Commerce since the formation of the new Government no longer depends on Industry but on Economy.
The Community of Madrid is once again the region that leads in attracting funds from abroad in the first nine months of the year, with 10,262 million, 56% of the total, according to the DataInvex Foreign Investment Registry of the Secretary of State for Commerce . A part of the money allocated to Madrid is due to the headquarters effect since a good part of the registered offices of the multinationals that set up shop in Spain are concentrated in the capital.
It is followed by the Valencian Community (2,469 million); Catalonia (with the aforementioned 2,087 million) and the Basque Country (1,494 million). The statistics are very erratic and can lead to errors since, due to the aforementioned headquarters effect, investments can end up being attributed to Madrid that are actually made in other communities.
