Bologna, Italy's most attractive city for foreign investment in industry

Bologna is the first city in Italy in terms of its ability to attract foreign capital for industrial investment. This is according to data gathered by FDI intelligence, a Financial Times group company, according to which in 2023 the capital of Emilia beat not only Milan and Rome, but all the most dynamic European cities with which it is accustomed to comparison, from Oslo to Barcelona, from Frankfurt to Paris, both in terms of the growth of transactions carried out by foreign investors and the increase in foreign capital invested and jobs created as a result.

Bologna is not only first in Italy, but third in Western Europe, after the German cities of Mannheim and Stuttgart, and sixth worldwide (also surpassed by the Romanian city of Craiova, Baku in Azerbaijan and Sharja in the United Arab Emirates).

A positioning that rewards the international openness of the Emilia area and Bologna's historical role as a geographical crossroads. "Our companies are strong exporters and have factories all over the world," emphasises Valter Caiumi, president of Confindustria Emilia Central area, "The connections that are created are precious for fertilising direct investments in our city. Of course, infrastructures also count, in which central Emilia is extremely rich, the organisation of industries by supply chains and the promotional activities on which we are also actively working as an association'. Not to mention the extra-ordinary investments in innovation and research that the public and private sectors are coagulating around the tecnopolo, which has become the country's 'big data hub' and a strategic node for supercomputing in Europe, and the pioneering measure launched by the Region in 2024, with Law 14 for investment attraction, which has supported calls for 372 million euro in recent years in favour of the capital's development.

The research published by the FDi-Financial Times returns increase values for 2023 on the year before and not absolute data, so Bologna's record variations (+200% foreign greenfield investment projects, +692% capex in investments and +562% new jobs created), as well as that of the world's other most dynamic cities, should be read with caution in light of presumably low starting data, because the Covid and post-pandemic years have greatly reduced international capital movements. Overall in 2023, according to the Financial Times analysis, companies around the world announced more than $1.33 billion worth of Ide, with fewer projects than the previous year but average capital expenditure (capex) at its highest level since 2008, and 'this increased capital intensity has made competition for Ide (Foreign Direct Investment) fiercer than ever'.

The world's leading city for Ide growth in 2023 was the university hub of Mannheim in south-west Germany, where pharmaceutical giant Roche has set its sights. And Germany takes four of the top ten places of the most attractive European cities in the world (besides Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Munich). Bologna is the only Italian in the top ten, Milan is only 22nd in Europe (99th worldwide), Barcelona is 38th in Europe (surpassed by Valencia in 9th place), Rome is 40th (170th worldwide).