The World in Europe: FDI by European SMEs

This stand-alone report analyses FDI patterns of European SMEs with the purpose of developing tailor-made policy recommendations that can improve the framework conditions for European SMEs that establish themselves within and outside Europe. Based on the analysis, we draw the following main conclusions:

• Barriers to undertake FDI projects have been lowered during the period 2003-2015, which has allowed more and smaller projects to be carried out
• More than half of the FDI projects undertaken by European SMEs are located in within Europe (and particularly the EU) with the United Kingdom as the main destination
• Around 40 per cent of the SME investors were recurrent investors that have undertaking more than one FDI project during 2003-2015

The report is part of a two-year research programme, The World in Europe, global FDI flows towards Europe. The programme casts new light on three topics related to the integration of Europe in the world economy:

• Extra-European FDI towards Europe
• Intra-European FDI
• FDI by European SMEs

Key conclusions and recommendations related to each of these topics can be found in three stand-alone reports and a number of scientific reports that contain detailed methodological descriptions and results. The insights gained from the study are summarised in a synthesis report that cuts across the three topics.

Download synthesis report

Download scientific report – Collection of SME FDI data

The study is commissioned by ESPON