Last year, foreign direct investment (FDI) played a significant role in the national GDP, constituting 69% of Portugal's wealth and ranking among the highest in the OECD.
A recent analysis by the Bank of Portugal (BdP) indicates that while there was a slight decline in the stock of FDI in 2024, it still positioned Portugal as one of the leading countries among the 27 OECD members. By the end of 2024, FDI accounted for 69% of GDP, marking a substantial increase of 37 percentage points from 2008, when it was 32% of GDP, effectively doubling over 17 years.
The analysis further reveals that the FDI stock across OECD countries rose from 25% to 53% of GDP, and within the EU, it grew from 36% to 64%. This highlights that Portugal’s growth trajectory in this regard was more pronounced than that of other nations.
At the close of 2024, Portugal’s FDI stock as a percentage of GDP ranked among the highest within the OECD countries assessed, only exceeded by Luxembourg (1227%), the Netherlands (214%), Switzerland (94%), Estonia (83%), and Belgium (69%).
FDI is a crucial indicator of a country's ability to attract international investments, serving as a vital source of capital that supports economic growth, technology transfer, and productivity enhancement. The text serves as a source of job creation and indicates strong integration into global value chains. However, data released by the Bank of Portugal (BdP) reveal that the country lost €400 million in foreign direct investment (FDI) during the first six months of this year. This decline in investments can be attributed primarily to a decrease in the debt of resident entities to non-resident companies within the same corporate group.
According to the BdP, the total reduction in debt owed by companies operating in Portugal to foreign entities within the same group amounted to €1.6 billion between January and June, which exerted downward pressure on total transfers. The BdP explains that this reduction is mainly due to a reclassification of these liabilities into the functional category of "portfolio investment." Under the current statistical methodology, these relationships could no longer be classified as direct investment.
