24 October 2017•Update: 25 October 2017
By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA
Turkey received $3.7 billion equity capital from the European Union between January and August this year, marking a 72.6 percent rise year-on-year, according to Ministry of Economy Tuesday.
In terms of equity capital, direct investment from the EU countries amounted to 77 percent of eight-month inflow to Turkey -- around $4.8 billion in total.
According to ministry figures, Netherlands ($1.5 billion), Austria ($308 million) and Germany ($202 million) were among top sources of capital inflow.
In the same period, financial intermediation sector received the highest amount of overseas capital with $1.37 billion, followed by electricity/gas/water supply sector -- $972 million.
The manufacturing sector and other community/social/personal services sector received $762 million and $636 million net inflow, respectively.
This January to August, net foreign direct investment (FDI) in Turkey stood at $6.5 billion, compared with $7.7 billion FDI over the same period last year -- a 14.9 percent fall. However, in August, the net FDI recorded a 3.7 percent monthly increase to reach $838 million, up from $808 million in July.
A total of 3,253 new foreign-backed companies were established in Turkey, including 33 branch offices, while 124 domestic companies benefited from overseas participants in the period of January-August.
As of August, nearly 56,500 companies with international capital are operating in Turkey, of which 40 percent are linked with EU member states.
Over 21,000 of these companies are operating in the retail and wholesale trade sector. The other major sectors are real estate renting and business activities with 9,188 firms, and manufacturing with 6,820 companies.
