Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Georgia stood at USD 572 million in 2020, down 57.2% from 2019, according to the final data released by the Georgian National Statistics Office (Geostat) on August 16.
The figure is down 7.3% from preliminary data of USD 616.8 million released in March. The Geostat named adjustment of reinvestments by several enterprises as the reason behind the change.
The National Statistics Office said the key driver of the year-on-year decline was the transfer of several companies from non-residents to residents which reduced the value of FDI by USD 283 million. .
According to the Geostat, the share of reinvestments in 2020 amounted to 87.5%, that is USD 500.5 million.
In 2020, the largest amount of FDI came from the United Kingdom – USD 303 million, up from USD 236.9 mln. in 2019, followed by the Netherlands with USD 200.7 million (up from 88.1 in 2019), the U.S. with USD 98.4 mln. (down from 115.6 mln. a year before), and Turkey with USD 79 million, down from 174.2 mln in 2019.
The rest of the investors are Malta – USD 45.9 million (up from 1.2 in 2019), Russia – USD 39.2 mln. (down from 55.2 in 2019), Germany – USD 36.5 mln. (up from USD 23.7 mln. in the previous year), Denmark – USD 28.9 million (up from USD 2.8 mln. in 2019) and Luxembourg USD 21.6 million, decrease from USD 68.8 million before. FDI from Panama was negative with 210.1 million U.S. dollars.
Financial sector received the largest share of investments with USD 404.4 million (up from 272.1 in 2019), followed by mining sector with USD 98.8 million (up from 52.4 mln. a year before) and real estate with 90.3 million (significant rise from 8.6 million in 2019).
The other sectors receiving FDI are transports and communications – USD 62.7 million; manufacturing – USD 35.5 million; construction – USD 33.3 million; health and social work – USD 10.6 million; other sectors – USD 85.9 million; Investments in hotels and restaurants posted negative, at USD -249.5 million.
2021 first quarter FDI stood at USD 132 million, according to adjusted data.
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