Serbia has become the world’s leading destination for greenfield foreign direct investment, with neighbouring Montenegro in second place, fDi Intelligence has reported.
In the annual Greenfield FDI Performance Index, which looks at inbound greenfield investment in 2018 relative to the size of each country’s economy, Serbia scores 11.92 in the index, closely followed by Montenegro (11.49) in second place and Cambodia (10.82) in third. The score means that Serbia attracts almost 12 times the amount of greenfield FDI that might be expected given the size of its economy.
Serbia’s leading FDI sectors are automotive components, food and tobacco, textiles and real estate, which accounted for 54 per cent of total inbound FDI in 2018. The country received 107 FDI projects in 2018, 27 more than the previous year.
Despite being a new entrant to the 2019 index, Montenegro was ranked second with 11.49 scores and 11 GFDI projects.
Lithuania came in fourth amongst the 105 countries analysed, with 8.47 index points and 80 greenfield investment projects.
Armenia ranked 9th with a score of 5.91, Georgia 10th (5.88), Bosnia and Herzegovina 15th (4.83), Latvia 16th (4.69), Bulgaria 17th (4.69), North Macedonia 18th (4.45), Hungary 23rd (3.84), Romania 24th (3.48), Poland 28th (3.11), Ukraine 38th (2.63) and Belarus 41st (2.55). The Czech Republic (45th; 2.38) also made it to the top 50 of the list.
