At the end of 2013, the European Union (EU) held Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) stocks of 54.1 billion euro in the Gulf Arab countries including Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen whereas Gulf FDI in the EU amounted to 63 billion euro.
EU FDI in the rest of the world amounted to 4,900 billion euro while stocks held by the rest of the world in the EU amounted to 3,778 billion euro.
These figures were released Wednesday, by Eurostat, the EU statistical office.
The United States, represented the main partner of the EU for FDI. At the end of 2013, the United States (1,686 bn or 34 percent of total stocks held by the EU in the rest of the world) was the leading location of EU FDI stocks, followed by Switzerland (667 bn or 14 percent), Brazil (272 bn or 6 percent) and Canada (225 bn or 5 percent).
The United States was also by far the main investor in the EU (1, 652 bn euro or 44 percent of total FDI stocks held by the rest of the world in the EU), ahead of Switzerland (431 bn or 11 percent).
Together, these two countries accounted for more than half of FDI stocks held by the rest of the world in the EU at the end of 2013.