Foreign Direct Investment in Real Estate and Related Business Services:Poland vs OECD Countries​

Poland has experienced a relatively large inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the last two decades. FDI has been flowing mainly into services and manufacturing similarly to the trend observed in global capital movement. Within the services, the financial intermediation played the biggest role in terms of attracting FDI, but real estate and related business activities (legal, accounting, auditing, tax, marketing, etc.) also saw a high inflow of foreign capital. The paper analyzes the evolution of inward FDI stock in Poland over the period 1998–2012 with a particular emphasis on real estate and related business activities. It also discusses how Poland differs in terms of sectoral decomposition in the services of inward FDI stock from other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries representing both Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and advanced economies. Finally, the paper answers the question how Poland is performing relative to other OECD members in terms of FDI attractiveness.