Foreign Direct Investment in Ireland 2019

Source Publications: Foreign Direct Investment Annual, National Income and Expenditure Annual

Get the data: PXStat BPA34, PXStat NQQ35

The OECD Benchmark Definition of Foreign Direct Investment (4^th Edition, BMD4) prescribes a number of indicators which indicate the level of globalisation in an economy. The following metrics allow for cross-country comparisons based on the relative importance of FDI: Inward FDI positions in reporting economies and inward flows expressed as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at current prices (Figure 1.2 and 1.3). As these measures focus on the investment, they reveal how much foreign ownership exists in an economy.

Get the data: OECD Stat

As illustrated in Figure 1.2, foreign investors have a significant role in Irish business. Figure 1.3 shows FDI flows in 2019 as a percentage of GDP. FDI flows for 2019 were up from the previous year. As seen in both Figures 1.2 and 1.3, Ireland is one of the most globalised nations in Europe. For a breakdown of these flows and positions by geography and investment type, see the 2019 Foreign Direct Investment release.

Get the data: OECD Stat

Figure 1.4 illustrates a distributional analysis of Foreign Direct Investment into Ireland. Firms are sorted by the size of their inward FDI investments and then grouped. As illustrated, the first group of 25 firms makes up 71% of Ireland’s FDI inward. This illustrates how highly concentrated Irish FDI is given there are thousands of firms that receive FDI investments in Ireland.

Figure 1.5 shows Irish FDI Abroad by an Ultimate Controlling Parent presentation. Figure 1.1 shows that Irish FDI abroad can be higher, for certain years, than the FDI position in Ireland. This is determined to a large extent by Redomiciled PLCs in Ireland. The Redomiciled PLCs are included within the data listed under Ireland in Figure 1.5. Figure 6.6 in the new Redomiciled PLC chapter shows that these companies own more than half of Irish FDI Positions abroad. For confidentiality purposes data in 2015, 2016, 2017 is redacted for US ultimately owned Irish resident firm investment abroad.

Get the data:  PXStat BPQ26

The direct investment figures depicted on this publication's infographic were presented according to the location of the Ultimate Controlling Parent. The FDI positions of the top ultimate investing countries are outlined in Figure 1.6. As illustrated in Figure 1.6, the United States is the biggest investor in Ireland, accounting for over seven hundred billion in our FDI positions inward.

Source Publications: Foreign Direct Investment Annual

In Figure 1.7, the change in investment between 2012 and 2019 by region is shown. Asia has increased investment into Ireland the most while other regions have also increased their investment into Ireland. In the 2018 publication, it was shown that investment from Asia had grown by 287.5%. Due to merger and acquisition investment with origins in Asia, this percentage change has increased dramatically since.

As previously mentioned, we have included more specific figures for the activities of Redomiciled PLCs in this year’s publication. These are figures taken from OFATS statistics produced by the business register. Here we present a breakdown of Irish foreign affiliates in total along with a division between that which pertains to investment from redomiciled PLCs and that which pertains to native Irish companies. Native in this case referring to firms which have originated in Ireland. Figure 1.8 shows the strong effects of these entities that have headquartered in Ireland on our outward affiliate statistics.