Foreign investments in Italy will grow in 2024.
"Our country is proving to be an increasingly attractive and reliable destination for foreign investors: FDI (foreign direct investment) growth in 2024 was 5 percent, while the EU average decreased by 5 percent; with €35 billion, we hold the record for greenfield FDI in the Eurozone; in the first four months of 2025 alone, we recorded new investments totaling €20.7 billion. These results reflect an increasingly strong country, ranked seventh in Europe, primarily thanks to the stability of the government, which remains the primary guarantee for those wishing to invest." This was stated by Adolfo Urso, Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy, in his greeting message to the organizers—the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces and the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region—of the third edition of Selecting Italy, currently being held at the Generali Convention Center in Trieste.
URSO explained how "our focus is shifting toward creating value chains rooted in the local area. This means promoting innovation, sustainability, and integration between businesses, research centers, and universities, fostering more inclusive and distributed growth. The government has made numerous tools available to support these virtuous processes: we have allocated new resources, including in the budget law, to businesses, thus making the country more attractive, including in its strategic port and inland areas, with €300 million for limited liability zones." Finally, the minister emphasized the need to simplify administrative processes and enable the rapid implementation of significant investments by foreign entities. If the project exceeds one billion euros, Article 13 of the Asset Decree addresses this need by accelerating procedures and reducing the number of stakeholders to a single entity. Collaboration between institutions and businesses at all levels to attract foreign investment is the key to balanced and robust development, thus creating real and lasting value for all.
A recent report by Confindustria, in collaboration with Luiss University in Rome, outlined the foreign presence in Italy. There are over 18,400 of them, generating €173 billion in added value (17.4 percent of the national total) and employing 1.7 million people (9.7 percent of Italy's total workforce).
The report describes the increasingly significant role played by foreign companies in Italy's economic development: in the last available year alone (2022), their contribution increased by 10.7% in industry and 15.3% in services compared to 2021. The average company size also increased, from 95.8 to 99.4 employees per firm. The main investors come from the United States (19.9% of employees), France (19.4% of turnover), and the Netherlands , which together account for the majority of the value generated. In particular, the Netherlands and the United States lead in R&D investments, confirming the link between foreign capital and innovative growth.
In 2024, while Europe saw a further decline, following the one recorded in 2023, which primarily affected the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, Italy recorded a 5% growth . This percentage earned it two places in the ranking of the most attractive European countries for foreign investors. The latest study published by EY paints a picture of this scenario, highlighting that 224 investment projects were announced in 2024, an increase of 10 compared to the previous year.
Another finding that bucks the trend compared to Europe is that Italy has the highest percentage of investors who have not postponed, cancelled, or reduced their investment plans in the last 12 months, followed by Luxembourg and the Netherlands, where 72% of companies have maintained their investment commitments. This is particularly significant among companies in the service sector (43%) and in specific industrial sectors where demand in Europe remains weak, such as the automotive industry (45%), as well as in energy-intensive industries such as chemicals and plastics (47%).
In short, this is a promising picture, once again demonstrating how crucial the stability the current government has brought to the country is to the economy. Minister Urso, who has been very active in encouraging the influx of foreign capital over the past three years, reiterated that his and the government's efforts are aimed at strengthening this trend. "Our focus," URSO stated, "is shifting toward the creation of locally rooted value chains. This means promoting innovation, sustainability, and integration between businesses, research centers, and universities, fostering more inclusive and distributed growth." "The government," he explained, "has made numerous tools available to support these virtuous processes: we have allocated new resources, including in the budget law, to businesses, thus making the country more attractive, including in its strategic port and inland areas, with €300 million for Simplified Logistics Zones."
The article Foreign investments in Italy will grow in 2024 comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/crescono-investimenti-esteri-in-italia-nel-2024/ on Tue, 04 Nov 2025 13:30:11 +0000.