Focal points of global investors are shifting. Africa and South America are becoming more and more attractive to them. According to a study by IBM called “Global Location Trends”, Germany is also increasingly attracting investors. With regard to jobs which were created as a result of foreign investments, Germany ranks eighth in Europe. At a global scale, Germany ranks 18th in this respect. In total the number of jobs created in Germany as a result of foreign investment amounted to almost 18,000 in 442 projects.
The IBM Global Location Trends study which is carried out each year by IBM Global Business Services also shows that investors spread their investment projects over a larger geographical area. Investment increases particularly into countries in Africa and South America.
However, Germany is not only the target countries of investors, but also their home country. Thus, Germany came third in the ranking of most important investors. Most investors come from the USA. These account for one quarter of all 1.2 million jobs created worldwide through investment by foreigners. The share of investors from Japan is 12% and that of German investors 11%.
Chinese and Indian investors play an ever increasing role. Investors from these two countries created about 80,000 new jobs outside their home countries. This is an increase by 75% and brought these two countries in the top ten of international investors.
While in the past east Europe was the most popular region for German foreign investments, today the lion share of German investments goes to China, India, Mexico and Malaysia. In Latin America Germany is the second most important foreign investor behind the USA.
The number of jobs created by foreign investment in Africa and South America in proportion to the total number of new jobs grew from 13 to 17%. In South America the number of jobs almost doubled due to foreign investment. In Africa most important target countries for foreign investment are South Africa, Morocco and Egypt.
Germany profits in particular in the service sector and in research and development from foreign investment. The most important foreign investors in Germany come from the USA (43%), followed by Switzerland (7%), Great Britain, Japan and the Netherlands (6% each).
Within Germany the German chemical industry is benefitting most from foreign investment (11% of total foreign investment) followed by the service sector (business services) and the energy sector (in particular solar energy) with 10% each.
The study is available for free-of-charge download from the internet. 