Foreign Direct Investment

The overall volume of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Central and Eastern European candidate countries continued to increase in 1999. Net inflows were higher than three per cent of GDP in most countries, with sharp increases in Slovakia (from 2.8 to 3.7 per cent of GDP), in the Czech Republic (from 4.5 to 9.1 per cent) and in Bulgaria (from 2.8 to 6.1 per cent). The stock of FDI per capita built up since 1989 is still the highest in Hungary, followed by the Czech Republic and Estonia. A high level of investment remains essential to further restructure and modernise the economies of all the Central and Eastern European candidate countries as well as Turkey. In Turkey, FDI inflows have been particularly low since the early 1980s, reflecting a relatively high degree of economic volatility. As a result, the stock of FDI per capita is significantly lower than in most other candidate countries. Cyprus and Malta continue to have much higher levels of FDI per capita.

Source: European Union November 8, 2000 Strategy paper on Progress towards Accession by each of the candidate countries