New York – The value of the investment stock in Italian companies based abroad reached in 2014 a share of €547.6 billion, for 30,351 Italian companies with a total turnover of over €560 billion. These same companies employ more than 1,5 million people (2013 data). This was revealed by a research of the Centro Studi Impresalavoro processing Bank of Italy and Istat data. The recent acquisitions of Pirelli by the China National Chemical Corporation, and of ItalCementi by the German group Heidelberg Cement have reignited the debate on shopping for foreign investors to the detriment of Italian companies. And while foreign investments in Italy is a good sign of a healthy business environment in Italy, it is also interesting to note the increasing number of Italian investments abroad, with businesses in more than 160 countries : 52% located in the EU-27, 10% in other European countries, 11% in North America and 8% South America. (9Colonne)
