Netherlands 4th-best in Europe for foreign direct investment; Randstad favored globally: IBM

The Netherlands is attracting a lot of foreign direct investments, ranking 4th best in Europe after the United Kingdom, Germany and France, according to the interim Global Location Trends report published by IBM. 

Last year the Netherlands attracted 396 foreign investment projects, which together created an estimated 9,500 jobs. That is a decline of 1.5 percent in foreign investment projects compared to 2017. As a result, job growth also declined slightly in 2018. 

The Netherlands is 6th best globally for valued jobs created per foreign investment project. These are higher-paying and/or knowledge intensive jobs created by higher-value investment projects. Ireland is the global leader on this front, closely followed by Singapore Lithuania and Switzerland. The Netherlands falls just below Finland for top-ranking destinations by average job value of investment projects. 

The Randstad region in particular is popular among foreign investors, ranking fourth globally in terms of foreign investment projects per metropolitan area after London, Paris and Singapore. Three quarters of the foreign investments made in the Netherlands last year, were made in the west of the country. 

The ICT sector in the Netherlands particularly profited from foreign direct investments last year, with over a quarter of foreign investments landing in this sector. Globally, the ICT sector also performed very well attracting 5 percent more investment and creating 10 percent more jobs. 

It is not surprising that the Netherlands is doing well in terms of foreign direct investment, Roel Spee of IBM said to NU.nl. "The Netherlands has good universities, is easily accessible logistically and has a leading IT infrastructure", he said to the newspaper.

Foreign investments in the Netherlands still mainly came from the United States last year. The United Kingdom is the second largest origin country for investments in the Netherlands, with especially financial services organizations choosing the Netherlands as a new place of residence due to the Brexit.