France has retained its position as the world’s sixth most attractive country in the 2022 rankings produced by the American firm A.T. Kearney.
Since 1998, the American consulting firm A.T. Kearney, employing 4,200 people in more than 40 countries, has published an annual indicator on the attractiveness of countries for foreign direct investment. This indicator is based on a survey of a thousand senior executives around the world. The selected businesses are from 29 countries and have annual revenues of more than €500 million. The sample is made up of 45% service companies, 35% industries and 17% digital businesses.
In 2022, France remained in sixth position in the rankings, while Australia was replaced in the top 10 by China. The A.T. Kearney survey reflects the optimism of investors, with 76% seeking to increase their international investments in the next three years, compared with 67% in 2021. Investors identified the readability of regulations and the absence of corruption as the most important criteria concerning the location of foreign investment projects. They also highlighted pro-active and advantageous tax policies combined with a high level of innovation and training.
Leaders are once again turning to stable and developed economies. The United States, Germany and Canada occupied the first three places in the rankings. However, A.T. Kearney did point out that the rankings were finalized a few days before the start of the war in Ukraine. This geopolitical shock could slow down investments in Europe, in particular because of inflation relating to raw materials.