Foreign direct investment in Croatia fell by 55.2 percent to EUR 1.87 billion in 2009 from 2008, according to preliminary figures published by the Croatian National Bank on Friday.
Broken down by activity, FDI in Croatian wholesale trade and in commission trade brought EUR 733.9 million in 2009. Financial intermediation, except insurances and pension funds, received EUR 658 million as FDI.
The amount of EUR 298.6 million was invested as FDI in other business activities.
The activity of extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas received EUR 127.2 million as FDI last year.
It was followed by retail trade with EUR 117.4 million and real estate investments with EUR 108 million.
Broken down by country, investors from the Netherlands topped the list in 2009, with EUR 1.08 billion. The Austrians followed with EUR 420.7 million. Hungary was third-ranked with EUR 154.8 million, followed by Slovenia with EUR 108 million.
According to the HNB, foreign direct investment in Croatia from 1993 to the end of 2009 totalled EUR 23.77 billion. During that period, Austria was the top investor with EUR 6.2 billion.
In 2009, Croatian business people invested a total of 912 million euros. They made foreign direct investments in the amount of EUR 4.03 billion from 1993 to the end of 2009.
