Invest Bulgaria Agency (IBA) forecasted that foreign direct investment (FDI) in Bulgaria would reach more than five billion euro for 2007, investor.bg said on October 16, quoting IBA figures.

The data was provided at a media presentation of the annual report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which this year was entitled “Transnational Corporations, Extractive Industries and Development”.

The most recent data showed that foreign investment in Bulgaria was 4.4 billion euro in 2006, with 95 per cent of it being so-called greenfield investment, IBA said. Around 35 per cent of all the inflow was invested in real estate, and 25 per cent in production activities. A 20 per cent share of all foreign investment in South-Eastern Europe went to Bulgaria, investor.bg said.

Bulgaria ranked seventh in the world in terms of its FDI/GDP ratio in 2006. The country was expected to keep its position this year.
The inflow of FDI in South-Eastern Europe and the CIS increased by 68 per cent in 2006 to reach $69 billion (48.6 billion euro). Most of the foreign investment in the region went to Russia, followed by Romania, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Bulgaria.

The largest FDI recipient country in 2006 was the UK, followed by the US and China. Members of the European Union were well represented as recipient countries. Nine of the 20 economies with the largest FDI inflows were developing or transition economies, the report said.