Total foreign investment (stock) in Spain stood at 387.32 billion euros at the close of 2015, an increase of 0.5% on 2014. According to data from the 12,346 companies listed on the Foreign Investment Register (Spanish acronym: RIE) and disregarding the Entities Holding Foreign Securities (Spanish acronym: ETVE), which have no direct economic effect, productive investment amounted to 347.75 billion euros, an increase of 1.9% on the previous year.
1.18 million jobs depend on these productive investments, up 1.5% on 2014. The turnover generated by the foreign stock amounted to 389.45 billion euros, approximately one-third of Spanish GDP, an increase of 2% on the previous year.
The earnings by those companies partly owned by foreign investors (only stakes of 10% or more are considered for this purpose) rose by 6.6% to 21.31 billion euros.
The foreign investment stock is the result of adding the value of equity holdings (book value) in the company in which the direct investment is made to the live balance of net loans from non-resident investors to those companies.
The RIE data show that the increase in productive stock is mainly due to a 6.3% increase in equity, given that financing from foreign investors to the companies in which they hold equity fell by 13.5%. In turn, this reflects the improved access to financing in Spain. The stock is mostly concentrated in unlisted companies, which account for 91% of the total equity.
Productive investment is highly concentrated in large companies: 100 business groups account for 61.7% of the total, whereas 2,283 companies account for only 1.5% of productive investment.
The United States is the largest source of this investment (14.4%), followed by the United Kingdom (12.8%), Italy (11.8%) and France (11.5%). The top ten countries account for 80.7% of the stock. The four main countries have maintained the same positions as in 2014, although the stock coming from the United Kingdom rose by 10% and from France by 3.2%, while the stock coming from the USA fell by 2% and from Italy by 6.3%.
By receiving sector, foreign investment stock has remained stable in recent years and is concentrated in the electricity and gas supply sector (15.8%); the manufacture of other non-metal mineral products (8.7%); telecommunications (6.7%); wholesale trade and trade brokering (6.5%); and real estate activities (4.9%); among others.
The stock is concentrated (87%) in four autonomous regions of Spain: Madrid (64.5%); Catalonia (13.7%); Asturias (5.1%); and the Basque Country (3.7%), although it should be noted that the so-called "headquarters effect" tends to over-allocate company location to major economic hubs.
Stock statistics are published with such delay because, for RIE purposes, the deadline for accounting close of the financial year 2015 by foreign companies investing in Spain was 30 June 2016, with companies having nine additional months to declare their investments (to March 2017).
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad