Italy-China Investment Trends

According to Bank of Italy data, an imbalance persists between the Italian foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks in China and Chinese FDI in Italy. Italian FDI in China registered the following trends: from EUR 11,755 million in 2019 to EUR 12,901 million in 2020, reaching EUR 14,782 million in 2021, and EUR 15,552 million in 2022.

In contrast, Chinese FDI in Italy fluctuated, ranging from EUR 2,338 million in 2019 to a variation reaching EUR 2,560 million in 2020, EUR 2,158 million in 2021, and EUR 2,290 million in 2022. In terms of FDI flows, which record the value of cross-border transactions related to direct investment during a given period, Italian FDI into China has shown the following trends: increasing from EUR 672 million in 2019 to EUR 1,204 million in 2020, further to EUR 1,159 million in 2021, and then decreasing to EUR 1,132 million in 2022. Meanwhile, there has been a decline in Chinese foreign direct investment flows into Italy, from EUR 657 million in 2019 to a negative EUR 875 million in 2020, followed by an increase to EUR 236 million in 2021, and then a slowdown to EUR 140 million in 2022.

The data from the Bank of Italy are calculated using the asset-liability principle, and the foreign direct investment (FDI) stocks measure the total level of direct investment at a given point in time.