Brazil now ranks third among main destinations of European Union direct investments in the four leading emerging economies.  Data on the so-called BRIC group, which also includes Russia, India and China - now ranking fourth – were disclosed on Monday by the European Union Statistics Office (Eurostat).  The document reports that in 2007, Brazil was the destination of  7.1 billion euros in EU investments.

Of the emerging economies, Russia ranks first with 17.1 billion euros, followed by India with 10.9 billion. Direct EU investments in China, excluding Hong Kong, dropped to 1.8 billion euros. China’s  2007 figures are quite different from those seen in 2006, when  inflows from the EU totaled 6 billion euros.

The United Sates tops the list of main investors into the European Union and is the premier destination for EU investment, with investments of 145 billion and 113 billion euros in 2007, respectively. According to preliminary data, among EU countries, leading investors were the United Kingdom  (with outflows of 121 billion euros), Luxemburg (outflows of 78 billion euros) and Germany (outflows of 52 billion). The primary intra-European investment destinations were the United Kingdom (87 billion euros), Luxemburg (50 billion) and France (23 billion).

Eurostat defines Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as long term capital invested in an enterprise operating in another country whereby the direct investor acquires more than 10% of company Board of Directors voting rights.