October 17 (SeeNews) - Foreign direct investment (FDI) into Bulgaria decreased by 33.3% year-on-year to 988.5 million euro ($1.1 billion) in the first eight months of 2016, the central bank, BNB, said on Monday.
The January-August FDI was equivalent to 2.2% of 2016 GDP forecast by the BNB, compared with 3.3% of 2015 GDP estimate of the country's statistics office, the central bank said in a statement.
In August alone, FDI into Bulgaria fell by 3.7 million euro year-on-year, compared with an annual increase of 323.9 million euro in the same month of 2015.
The largest FDI inflow into Bulgaria in January-August 2016 came from the Netherlands, 179.6 million euro. Luxembourg followed with 145.9 million euro and the UK came in third with 126.7 million euro.
Real estate investments by non-residents totalled 51.9 million euro in the eight-month period, down from 40.9 million euro attracted a year earlier. The largest inflow of real estate investment came from Switzerland, 43.8% of the total; Norway followed with 11.8% and Russia with 10.7%.
($= 0.8903 euro)