Greece
12. U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and Other Investment Insurance and Development Finance Programs
A delegation comprised of senior officials from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), EXIM, Departments of Commerce and Energy, and USAID visited Greece in September 2020 to explore potential investments in critical infrastructure deals, including the ports of Alexandroupoli and Kavala and the shipyard at Elefsina.
Full DFC insurance coverage for U.S. investment in Greece is currently available on an exceptional basis. DFC considers Greece a high-income country but is authorized to operate business in Greece if there are strong foreign policy reasons to proceed. OPIC, DFC’s predecessor and the Greek Export Credit Insurance Organization signed an agreement in April 1994 to exchange information relating to private investment, particularly in the Balkans. Other insurance programs offering coverage for investments in Greece include the German investment guarantee program HERMES, the French agency COFACE, the Swedish Export Credits Guarantee Board (EKN), the British Export Credits Guarantee Facility (ECGF), and the Austrian Kontrollbank (OKB). Greece became a member of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) in 1989.
For the purposes of DFC currency inconvertibility insurance, currency inconvertibility is not an issue as Greece has been part of the eurozone since 2001.
13. Foreign Direct Investment and Foreign Portfolio Investment Statistics
Please note that the following tables include FDI statistics from three different sources, and therefore will not be identical. Table 2 uses BEA data when available, which measures the stock of FDI by the market value of the investment in the year the investment was made (often referred to as historical value). This approach tends to undervalue the present value of FDI stock because it does not account for inflation. BEA data is not available for all countries, particularly if only a few U.S. firms have direct investments in a country. In such cases, Table 2 uses other sources that typically measure FDI stock in current value (or historical values adjusted for inflation). Even when Table 2 uses BEA data, Table 3 uses the IMF’s Coordinated Direct Investment Survey (CDIS) to determine the top five sources of FDI in the country. The CDIS measures FDI stock in current value, which means that if the U.S. is one of the top five sources of inward investment, U.S. FDI into the country will be listed in this table. That value will come from the CDIS and therefore will not match the BEA data.
Table 2: Key Macroeconomic Data, U.S. FDI in Host Country/Economy
| Host Country Statistical source* | USG or international statistical source | USG or International Source of Data: BEA; IMF; Eurostat; UNCTAD, Other | ||||||
| Economic Data | Year | Amount | Year | Amount | ||||
| Host Country Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ($M USD) | 2019 | $209.85 billion | 2018 | $218.32 billion | www.worldbank.org/en/country | |||
| Foreign Direct Investment | Host Country Statistical source* | USG or international statistical source | USG or international Source of data: BEA; IMF; Eurostat; UNCTAD, Other | |||||
| U.S. FDI in partner country ($M USD, stock positions) | 2019 | $938 million | 2018 | $1.4 billion | BEA data available at https://www.bea.gov/international/direct-investment-and-multinational-enterprises-comprehensive-data
https://www.bankofgreece.gr/en/statistics/external-sector/direct-investment/direct-investment—stocks |
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| Host country’s FDI in the United States ($M USD, stock positions) | 2019 | N/A | 2018 | $639 million | BEA data available at https://www.bea.gov/international/direct-investment-and-multinational-enterprises-comprehensive-data
https://www.bankofgreece.gr/en/statistics/external-sector/direct-investment/direct-investment—stocks |
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| Total inbound stock of FDI as % host GDP | 2019 | 19.3% | 2018 | 16% | UNCTAD data available at
https://unctad.org/en/Pages/DIAE/World%20Investment%20Report/Country-Fact-Sheets.aspx [Select country, scroll down to “FDI Stock”- “Inward”, scan rightward for most recent year’s “as percentage of gross domestic product”] |
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* Source for Host Country Data: https://www.bankofgreece.gr/en/statistics/external-sector/direct-investment/direct-investment—stocks
Table 3: Sources and Destination of FDI
| Direct Investment from/in Counterpart Economy Data | |||||
| From Top Five Sources/To Top Five Destinations (US Dollars, Millions) | |||||
| Inward Direct Investment | Outward Direct Investment | ||||
| Total Inward | 45,153 | 100% | Total Outward | 19,236 | 100% |
| Germany | 9,247 | 20.5% | Cyprus | 5,197 | 27% |
| Luxembourg | 9,001 | 19.9% | United States | 3,564 | 18.5% |
| Netherlands | 7,157 | 15.9% | China: Hong Kong | 2,167 | 11.25% |
| Switzerland | 3,560 | 7.9% | Netherlands | 1,773 | 9.2% |
| Belgium | 2,708 | 6% | Romania | 1,403 | 7.3% |
| “0” reflects amounts rounded to +/- USD 500,000. | |||||
The results are consistent with host country data found here: https://www.bankofgreece.gr/en/statistics/external-sector/direct-investment/direct-investment—stocks
Table 4: Sources of Portfolio Investment
| Portfolio Investment Assets | ||||||||
| Top Five Partners (Millions, current US Dollars) | ||||||||
| Total | Equity Securities | Total Debt Securities | ||||||
| All Countries | 167,548 | 100% | All Countries | 9,257 | 100% | All Countries | 158,290 | 100% |
| Luxembourg | 45,416 | 27.1% | Luxembourg | 5,564 | 60.1% | Luxembourg | 39,851 | 25.2% |
| Italy | 13,214 | 7.9% | Ireland | 1,499 | 16.2% | Italy | 13,200 | 8.3% |
| Ireland | 38,257 | 22.8% | United States | 576 | 6.2% | United Kingdom | 5,810 | 3.7% |
| United Kingdom | 5,866 | 3.5% | Belgium | 548 | 5.9% | Ireland | 36,757 | 23.2% |
| Spain | 9,393 | 5.6% | France | 329 | 3.6% | Spain | 9,372 | 5.9% |
The results are consistent with host country data.