• COVER PAGE

  •  INTRODUCTION

  •  EUROPEAN
     CHAMPION:
THE UNITED KINGDOM

  •  THE RUNNER-UP:
      FRANCE

  •  GERMANY GRABS
      THIRD PLACE

  •  BELGIUM, NO. 4

  •  POLAND TAKES
      FIFTH PLACE

  •  IRELAND, NO. 6

  •  HUNGARY TAKES
      SEVENTH PLACE

  •  SPAIN, NO. 8

  •  THE NETHERLANDS
      RECORD BREAKING
      YEAR

  •  AUSTRIA ROUNDS
      OUT THE TOP 10

Any potential investor considering Ireland as a business location won't have to look very hard to find plenty of evidence that he or she has found the right place. Corporate location activity is very robust.

Bristol-Myers Squibb, for instance, chose Ireland last year for its biggest capital investment ever -- a $300 million project that will create a total of 500 jobs at two sites. Citibank has revealed plans to add some 1,300 jobs at its Global Processing and Servicing Center in Dublin. Hewlett-Packard is establishing a 200-employee Technology Campus in Leixlip. Dell Computer Corp. is building a $90 million manufacturing plant. And the list goes on and on.

In fact, according to Industrial Development Agency (IDA) Ireland (www.idaireland.com), 1998 was a record-breaking year for job creation. Some 16,000 new jobs were created by IDA Ireland-supported expansion projects last year.

Ireland is now recognized as a world leader in many industries, from electronics and engineering to consumer products and teleservices. Some of that success, Irish development officials say, is due to investment in infrastructure and good government.

A Tale of Two Investment Sources: Inside, Outside Europe

Here's a key finding from this year's analysis of the EIM: Location patterns for European facility investments originating in Europe are quite different from those for projects coming from outside Europe. "Generally, when people look at investment trends in Europe, they don't draw a distinction between intra-European projects and those coming from outside," says Ernst & Young's Barry Bright. "But there's a clear difference." For instance, the United Kingdom attracted 27 percent of all European facilities last year. But it was much more successful in landing projects from outside Europe (36 percent of the total) than in attracting intra-European investments (19 percent). "The United Kingdom is still the No. 1 destination in either case, but it's not quite so strong in the within-Europe picture," Bright explains. Other distinctions emerge in terms of industry sector. Software and electronics, for example, are the top sectors for investments into Europe. But automotive and chemicals projects top the list of intra-European facilities moves.