Foreign Direct Investment into Germany has soared since Brexit as British companies look to secure a foothold in Europe.
Official figures from Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI) reported in the Financial Times show FDI into Germany totalled €25.3 billionn last year, up 261 per cent from €7 billion in Covid-hit 2021.
A total of 170 FDI projects originated in the UK, up 21 per cent on 2021.
One of the biggest UK investments was by Frasers Group, the owner of Sports Direct, which announced last April that it was spending €300 million on a new distribution centre at Bitburg airport in western Germany that would become its European headquarters.
THEMPC, a promotional and branding company, also set up an operations hub in Munich to produce and distribute printed goods and bespoke packaging inside the EU without customers needing to pay extra duties and taxes.
“For British companies, it’s particularly important to have a foothold in the EU after Brexit,” said Robert Hermann, chief executive of GTAI, echoing similar comments made by Mike Galsworthy in a recent interview with The London Economic.
He said: “I was with Vince Cable about a month ago and he was saying that when he was minister for trade he used to go around the world telling people to invest in the UK because we were the gateway to the single market.
“That used to be the nation’s sales pitch.”
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