France is the leading destination country for Italian investment in Europe

Written by DG Treasury - Published on 12 June 2020

The 2019 report on international investment in France reaffirms foreign investors' confidence in France as a destination

France is the leading destination country for Italian investment in Europe

The "Bilan 2019 des investissements internationaux en France", published on 2 June by the Business France Agency, reaffirms the confidence of foreign investors in the destination "France", which is ranked 1st in Europe for foreign investment in industry and R&D. Foreign investments in France in 2019 come from 58 different countries with a predominance of projects generated by European countries (64% of the total). In order we find: 1- United States (16.2% of total projects), 2- Germany (15.5%), 3- Great Britain (12%) and 4- Italy (8%).

The Business France report highlights the dynamism of Italian investors in France with a 26% increase in the number of new investment projects in 2019 (118 in 2019 / 94 in 2018). These projects will create or maintain nearly 2,200 jobs (50% more than the previous year) by 2021. France is confirmed as the leading destination country for Italian investment projects in Europe (43% of Italian projects: they represented 37% in 2018), followed by Spain (9%) and Germany (8%). More than 1,700 companies have Italian majority shareholders and they employ almost 63,000 people nationwide.

Italy is the source of 13% of foreign investment in R&D, which places it in second place worldwide after the United States and ahead of Germany (10%).

Sectoral distribution of investments. In 2019, Italian companies invested primarily in the textile and fashion sector (13% of projects, 16% of jobs), energy (10% of projects, 17% of jobs), software and IT services (10% of projects, 5% of jobs) and in the mechanical and metallurgical sector (8% of projects, 6% of jobs)

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