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2018 Foreign Direct Investments down by 35% in 2018

Tuesday, March 12
Georgia’s National Statistics Office (Geostat) reports that the foreign direct investments (FDI) in Georgia amounted to $1 232.4 million in 2018, down by 34.9 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.

“The main reasons for decreasing the FDI include completion of a pipeline project, transferring of ownership in some companies from non-resident to resident units and reduction in liabilities to non-resident direct investors,” Geostat reports.

Moreover, the share of reinvestment in 2018 is 45.3 percent of total FDI.

The shares of major foreign direct investor countries in FDI stand as follows: Azerbaijan (19.5 percent), United Kingdom (16.5 percent) and the Netherlands (13.6 percent). These top three investor countries are followed by the US (8.4%), Panama (6.1%), Czech Republic (5.9%) and China (5.3%). Korea and Russia occupy the 8th and 9th place with 5.1% and 4.9% respectively.

Also, the share of three major economic sectors in FDI reached 52.3 percent in 2018. The largest share of FDI was registered in the financial sector, totaling $ 277.9 million. The transports sector was the second with $209.9 million, followed by the energy sector with $157.2 million.

Investments were also made in the fields of manufacturing (11.5%), construction (8.4%), real estate (7.3%), hotels and restaurants (5.9%) and mining (5.4%).

As for Quarter 4 of the last year, the FDI amounted to $197.1 million which is 62.3 percent lower compared to the data of Q4 2017.

In Q4 2018, the shares of FDI by major foreign direct investor countries were distributed as follows: the United Kingdom (34.0 percent), Azerbaijan (25.4 percent) and the Netherlands (17.7 percent).

The largest share of FDI was registered in the financial sector, reaching $84.2 million in Q4 2018, the manufacturing sector was the second with $20.6 million, followed by the real estate sector with $19.9 million.

Since 2013, the FDI chart looks as follows:

2013 – $1 020.6 million
2014 - $1 817.7 million
2015 - $1 665.6 million
2016 - $1 565.8 million
2017 - $1 894.5 million
2018 - $1 232.4 million.