Romania ranks 17th most attractive emerging market for FDI – Kearney

Romania is the only Southeast European country among the top 25 in the 2024 FDI Confidence Index emerging market rankings, having joined the list for the first time along Poland, Hungary and four other countries, Kearney’s strategic service, the Global Business Policy Council, said in a research report published on Thursday.

Of the surveyed investors, 29% expressed greater optimism about Romania, while 11% indicated prevailing pessimism. The rest stated they held equal levels of optimism and pessimism.

China (including Hong Kong), the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia clinched podium positions as the most favoured emerging market destinations for FDI, drawing the most optimism from investors.

The 2024 edition of the report was Kearney’s second annual ranking for emerging markets, which included countries according to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) classification.

The United States led Kearny’s general world rankings for a twelfth consecutive year, while Canada was the runner-up and China (including Hong Kong) ranked third. No Southeast European countries made it among the top 25 countries in the global ranking.

The level of net optimism related to the global economy rose by seven points year-on-year. While optimism only rose marginally to 64%, pessimism shrank from 35% to 29%. An overwhelming 88% of respondents said they planned on increasing their FDI in the next three years, up by 6 percentage points on the year.

Eighty-five percent of respondents believed a rise in geopolitical tensions would impact their investment decisions, with companies already making nearshoring or friendshoring decisions. Supply chain disruptions and the trade war between the US and China are also among the primary drivers of these measures.

The 2024 FDI Confidence Index was constructed using primary data from a survey of senior executives of the world’s leading corporations headquartered in thirty countries and spanning all sectors, each with revenues of $500 million (461.3 million euro) or more. The survey was conducted in January 2024.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) into Romania fell 34% on the year in 2023, to 6.587 billion euro, according to data from the country’s central bank. The number of new businesses with foreign capital established in Romania in 2023 decreased by 4.9% on the year to 7,010, according to data published by the National Trade Register Office.

($=0.9226 euro)