The Minister of Business and Labour, Roger Torrent i Ramió, announced this Thursday at a press conference that the Government of Catalonia had attracted 880 million euros in foreign investment in 2023. This is up 42% on the previous year and represents the highest figure since records began in 1985.

In total, there were 112 investment projects by foreign companies in 2023, 19% higher than the previous year, and for the first time there were more than 100 projects. These investments have created 4,533 jobs, up 31% on 2022.

The Minister for Business and Labour stressed that “these are extraordinary, record-breaking figures, which show how competitive Catalonia is in the business world, that international investors have confidence in our country and that we have all the ingredients for guaranteeing investment with the potential for growth”.

In 2023, 67% of foreign investment attracted by the Government of Catalonia (592 million euros) was industrial, one of the main priorities of the Ministry of Business and Labour, given that industrial economies are more innovative, more international, more productive and generate more stable and higher quality jobs. By sector, the most notable investment projects involved companies working in technology (26% of total projects), life sciences (14%), the automotive–mobility industry (12%), video games (11%) and food (10%).

As regards the origin of these investments, for the first time they exceeded the threshold of 30 different countries. This demonstrates Catalonia’s capacity to diversify the sources for new projects. The countries providing the most projects were the United States (21% of the total), France (13%) and the United Kingdom (9%).

Furthermore, of the 112 foreign investment projects in 2023, 42% were greenfield projects, i.e. companies with no prior presence in Catalonia. The remaining 58% were companies already established in the country that expanded or made new investments. This combination demonstrates the country’s potential to continue attracting new investors together with the confidence in Catalonia among multinationals already present in the country.

This year, for the first time, the impact of foreign investment projects in the digital and green transformations were also analysed, showing that 40% of the 2023 projects are directly linked to this area and generated 1,900 jobs (42% of the total).