Central Europe "better FDI location than China"

Although foreign direct investment (FDI) will probably have reached 70 billion dollars in China in 2004 and the general fear among businesses is that investment will pour out of Europe and head straight for China, investment will also move from Western Europe to Central/Eastern Europe in 2005. As Daniel Thorniley explained at a talk in Vienna regarding the "Business Forecast for 2005 for the Central & Eastern European Region", Central Europe has a growing appeal as several markets are now EU members. In particular, in 2003, FDI in Russia jumped from its low annual averages of 2 billion dollars to 8 billion dollars and is set to be between 8 and 13 billion dollars for the coming years.