IDA IRELAND has welcomed Ireland’s achievement of holding onto its top ranking in the highly influential IBM Global Location Trends report for 2014. Ireland has also improved its position in the World Bank’s “Doing Business 2015” survey.

Both reports are influential for firms deciding where to locate their investments in 2015.

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Ireland remains “the top performer in the world” according to the IBM report, in relation to the quality and added value brought by FDI projects coming into the country.

In addition Ireland was in the top four of global destination countries by estimated jobs – per million inhabitants. Dublin also made the top 10 of “destination” cities for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the world, based on projects won.

IBM states in the report that comparing countries on what projects are attracted, and not just the number of jobs, is an increasingly important metric for gauging inward investment performance.

To that end, IBM-Plant Location International has developed an FDI value indicator that assigns a value to each investment project, depending on the sector and the type of business activity. This value indicator assesses the “added value” and knowledge intensity of the jobs created by the investment project.

Using this measure, Ireland continued to be the top performer in the world, resulting from the country’s success in attracting research and development (R&D) activities in life sciences and ICT, coupled with high-value investment in financial services.

The World Bank “Doing Business 2015” report placed Ireland in 13th position in a survey of 189 economies for ease of doing business – an improvement of four positions since 2014. Ireland’s 2015 position ranks it ahead of investment competitors such as Switzerland, Netherlands and Israel.

Commenting today, the Chief Executive Officer of IDA, Mr Martin Shanahan said:

“Ireland has traditionally been a strong performer in FDI, but what comes through clearly from IBM’s latest and influential report, is that the quality of projects won is very high. It is pleasing to see companies not just placing operational roles in Ireland, but also high value research and development (R&D) projects in Ireland. This is also happening across a number of sectors, which gives Ireland a welcome balance to its portfolio of overseas investments. The latest high ranking follows on from Forbes late last year describing Ireland as the best location in the world to do business.

“In the World Bank report, we are reminded that the “nuts and bolts” of an economy sometimes get much less attention than the overall fiscal and monetary picture. The World Bank is recognising the efforts that Ireland is making to improve the ease of doing business here. Ireland’s improving score for ease of doing business will be positively received by potential international investors.” www.ida.ie