Warsaw was the leading central and eastern European (CEE) destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) in the financial services sector – with a total of $706.2m pouring into the Polish capital over the 12 months to March 1, 2014. According to estimates by database fDi Markets, the six projects in Warsaw generated 825 new jobs, the highest financial services job creation figures in the CEE for the year.
Moscow follows at some distance in second place having attracted $328.6m of FDI from six financial services sector projects, generating 253 jobs. It will be interesting to monitor how Russia’s recent actions in Ukraine will affect investors sentiment towards the country in the future. The Ukrainian capital of Kiev is sixth in the ranking, with $168m of investment through five projects, which created 330 jobs.
In third position in the incoming FDI table, the Romanian capital of Bucharest received $263.1m-worth of investment from two projects. One of them, by Société Générale, was the largest recorded in the region. The French bank is relocating some 200 jobs from Paris to Bucharest in a project worth $241.6m.
The Czech Republic is represented by three cities in the FDI inflows ranking, which portrays a positive picture of a country that seems to be able to attract good levels of FDI both to its capital and outside of it, too. Prague, Olomouc and Karlovy Vary attracted $177.8m, $134.4m and $100m, respectively.
One-way traffic
The Russian capital Moscow also has a dominant position in the ranking of CEE FDI outflows in the financial services sector. It leads the table with total investments of $777.5m through 25 projects, generating an estimated 1789 new jobs.
Russia-based insurer Rosgosstrakh was responsible for the single largest financial services project out of CEE. It invested $61.4m setting up a representative office in Beijing.
The rest of CEE was much better at attracting investment than generating it. In the outflows table, the financial centres in second to 10th place inclusively created just $374m of FDI outflows between them.