Germany's No. 1 investment location

More than 20,000 foreign companies have already invested in NRW and control their German or European activities from here. These include global concerns such as 3M, BP, Ericsson, Ford, Huawei, QVC, UPS, Toyota and Vodafone. They make NRW the No. 1 investment location in Germany, as more investment flows to NRW from abroad than to any other German federal state: NRW accounts for 23.3 percent of all foreign direct investments (FDI) in Germany. Foreign companies have thus become an important employer in the state, providing jobs for about one million people.

Strong business location for foreign direct investments

NRW is the No. 1 region for foreign capital in Germany. With 172.5 billion euros at the end of 2017, the state recorded the highest percentage (23.3 percent) of all 16 federal states of direct investments in Germany, which totaled 740.7 billion euros.

For financial investors in particular, the investment location NRW is an exceptionally attractive destination. The ranking of the direct investments from which the purely financial investments have been excluded also shows that NRW continues to be by far the most important destination for direct investments. Here NRW has reached a current level of 135.8 billion euros, corresponding to a national share of 25.4%.

Excluding Luxembourg due to its special role as a financial hub, the Netherlands is the largest investor in NRW. It accounts for 17.2% of the direct investment volume in the state, followed by the USA (7.5 %) and Great Britain (6.8 %).

Top places in the "fDi - European Cities and Regions of the Future 2020/2021" Award

Both the figures and the survey results confirm NRW as the No. 1 investment location: North Rhine-Westphalia is one of Europe's leading regions for business and investment – this is confirmed by the "European Cities and Regions of the Future 2020/2021" ranking of fDi Magazine, a subsidiary of the Financial Times Group. In the European location comparison conducted every two years, North Rhine-Westphalia once again demonstrates its strengths in numerous categories. For example, the state took first place in the "FDI Strategy" category for attracting foreign direct investment and second place in the overall result of the most sustainable "Large" or "Western European Regions" with more than four million inhabitants behind the Paris region. The location also does well in the overall ranking, coming in third behind the Paris and Dublin metropolitan areas.