Collapse of foreign direct investments by 81.5% in the first quarter of the year, BNB statistics reported , quoted by "Now". From January to March, 358.9 million euros of capital entered the country, compared to 1.935 billion euros for the same period in 2023.
The strongest decrease was reported in March, when the flow of foreign capital in the Bulgarian economy was only 150.6 million euros, while in March this year 1.178 billion euros were reported.
The BNB data is preliminary and usually undergoes upward corrections by the end of the year, but nevertheless the decline in investments will be difficult to catch up.
The main reason for the striking difference in direct investments this year compared to last is in the areas of "debt instruments" and "reinvested profit".
Under "debt instruments" means the flow of capital in the form of loans that foreign parent companies give to their subsidiaries in Bulgaria. In the first quarter of last year, the amount of these loans was 801 million euros, while this year they are 259 million euros. The smaller size of the loans provided can also be good news, because these funds must be returned, i.e. flow back out of the country.
That is not the case with the reinvested profit. If last year an impressive almost EUR 800 million profit was reported, which was again invested as an investment in the economy, this year in the first quarter the indicator has a negative value - minus EUR 70 million. This means that the companies exported their profits abroad, and this happened mainly in March, when the BNB reported an outflow of 245 million euros.
Investments in share capital are accepted as the purest form of actually attracted new foreign investments in the Bulgarian economy. However, their share is very modest. For the first quarter, 169.3 million euros are reported, compared to 335.5 million euros the previous year.
The largest net positive flows of direct investments in the country for the period January-March 2024 are from Austria (122.2 million euros), Italy (115.4 million euros) and Greece (70 million euros). At the same time, the largest net negative flows go to Russia (EUR 174.2 million) and Germany (EUR 154.3 million), according to the BNB.
BNB also reports the flow of investments of foreign persons in real estate. In the first quarter, it was 1.5 million euros. For comparison, last year in the first quarter this indicator was 2.4 million euros.