Foreign investments in EU reach €159bn

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from the 27-member EU to the rest of the world reached 171 billion euro in 2012, while investment from the rest of the world into the EU was 159 billion euro in 2012. The main destinations of EU investments were offshore financial centres (18 bn euro), Canada and India (both 16 bn), the USA (15 bn), China and Hong Kong (both 10 bn) and Russia (9 bn). "Offshore Financial Centres" is a term used by Eurostat which includes 38 countries, among them Liechtenstein, the Isle of Man, Andorra and Gibraltar, Bermuda, Bahrain, Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines. The main foreign investor into the EU was the USA (99 bn euro), followed by Canada (19 bn), Japan (8 bn), Russia and Hong Kong (both 7 bn) in 2012. However, EU disinvestments were recorded with Switzerland of 3 billion euro and Japan with 2 billion euro last year. On the other hand, Switzerland disinvested 6 bn euro in the EU, India disinvested 3 bn euro in the EU and Brazil disinvested 1 bn euro in the EU in 2012. These figures were released Thursday by Eurostat, the EU's statistical office.