Over one-third of EU FDI stocks lies in U.S.

Net foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks held by the European Union (EU) globally amounted to 6.89 trillion euros (7.34 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of 2015, and more than a third of them were absorbed by the United States, official data revealed on Thursday.

The FDI stocks held by the EU in the U.S. amounted to 2.56 trillion euros at the end of 2015, making up 37.2 percent of the EU's total FDI stocks, far ahead of Switzerland (12.0 percent), Bermuda (5.1 percent) and Brazil (4.7 percent), the EU's statistical office Eurostat said.

In the reverse direction, U.S. direct investors increased their presence in the EU to 2.44 trillion euros of FDI stocks at the end of 2015, or 41.7 percent of total FDI stocks held by the rest of the world in the EU.

Eurostat said the data demonstrated that EU and U.S. markets were still highly interconnected.

Notably, the FDI stocks held by the EU in China totaled 288 billion euros, or 4.2 percent of EU FDI stocks at the end of 2015.

While Chinese direct investments in the EU amounted to 115 billion euros, taking 2 percent of total FDI stocks held by the rest of the world in the EU.

Though investment stocks held globally in the EU rose strongly to 5.84 trillion euros at the end of 2015, the EU maintained a net investment position of slightly above one trillion euros vis-a-vis the rest of the world, the Eurostat said.

FDI stocks help to quantify the impact of globalization and measure longstanding economic links between countries.

They provide an indication of the relative importance of a country's economic presence abroad, or that of foreign partners in the reporting entity, measured in terms of FDI capital. Endit