Which sectors get the most foreign capital?

The foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow to Serbia in the first seven months of this year amounted to around EUR 2.9 billion, estimated the consulting company EY in its recent publication Macroeconomic Pulse.

That is nearly 15% more than in the same period last year. EY notices in its analysis that FDIs are changing in three ways.

Primarily, a growth of foreign investments in mining is noticeable. In 2024, around a fourth of FDIs were made in this sector. Last year, these investments comprised around 16% of the total FDIs, and in the 2010-2022 period, they were at only 7%.

In 2021 and 2022, around EUR 110-120 million per year was invested in mining, and last year it jumped to EUR 703 million, and in the second quarter of this year alone EUR 583 million.

The trend of the growth of Chinese investments is related to this. There has been an increase since 2018, and it has intensified from 2022 onwards, and reached nearly 30% in the first half of 2024, against some 1-2% in the period before 2018.

In the first half of this year, 49% of FDIs arrived from the EU, whereas the remaining 23% is distributed across all other countries. For example, in 2019, 60% of all FDIs to Serbia came from the EU, and only 8% from China.

Finally, car-related investments, FDIs into vehicles and car parts, such as tires, electrical equipment and cables keep increasing by a steady pace and now attract the lion’s share of total investments in manufacturing.

However, another trend is noticeable too, a big growth of investments in construction. Since 2019, not counting the pandemic year of 2020, over a billion euros a year have been entering Serbia. Until 2022, investments in the manufacturing industry were higher than those in construction, but in 2022, close to EUR 1.8 billion of foreign money was invested in this sector, whereas the manufacturing industry got EUR 1.5 billion.

Institut za razvoj i inovacije Beograd

Macroeconomic Pulse

foreign direct investments

FDI

foreign direct investment inflow

FDIs in mining

Chinese investments

FDIs in car industry

FDIs in car component industry

FDIs in construction

FDIs in manufacturing industry