The Brexit referendum result in June is said to have been responsible for having boosted the level of foreign investment coming into the Balearics. According to figures from the office of the national secretary of state for commerce, British investment was 229 million euros to the end of September.
Antoni Riera, the technical adviser at the Fundació Impulsa, which is a business-government initiative to promote Balearic competitiveness, says that this information is real and that it reflects febrile activity in the City of London. Financial institutions are moving capital out, with the Balearics being chosen as one of the safe havens to avoid the effects of Brexit.
Up to September, the total foreign investment was 505 million euros, so British money coming into the Balearics represented getting on for half of this. Of the rest, German investment in hotel purchases and real-estate operations reached 144 million euros, while there was a separate figure of 34 million of UK investment in hotels. Swiss investment in real estate was 24.7 million, while there were also French and Norwegian investments and ones via tax havens, such as Luxembourg.
The level of foreign investment is up sharply from last year, when the total was 267 million. It is expected that this year will close with a total of 700 million having been invested.