March 20 (SeeNews) - The net inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into Bulgaria decreased to 147.5 million euro ($157.8 million) in January, compared to an inflow of 627 million euro in the same month of last year, the central bank said on Monday.
The net FDI inflow in January, calculated according to the directional principle, was equal to 0.2% of Bulgaria's gross domestic product forecast for 2023, the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) said in a statement, citing preliminary data. The GDP for the current year is projected to amount to some 90.4 billion levs ($49.45 billion/46.2 billion euro).
In January of last year, the volume of FDI into Bulgaria stood at 0.7% of the 2022 GDP, according to central bank data.
All three main categories -- equity, reinvestment of earnings, and debt instruments, showed significant year-on-year declines in January, with the largest drop recorded in reinvestment of earnings, or the share of non-residents in the undistributed earnings/loss of the enterprise based on preliminary profit and loss data. That indicator dropped to 15.2 million euro in the first month of this year from 401 million euro in January 2021.
The largest net FDI inflow into Bulgaria in the review month, of 115.3 million, originated in Luxembourg, followed by the Netherlands - 21.1 million euro, and Belgium - 17.3 million euro. On the other hand, the largest net outflows were directed to Ireland and to Switzerland - 21.2 million euro and 7.4 million euro, respectively.
($ = 0.9346 euro)