News item | 12-02-2024 | 12:01
The Invest in Holland network, which attracts foreign companies to the Netherlands on behalf of the government, was involved in 217 investment projects of foreign companies in our country in 2023. A specific focus was on attracting and retaining precisely those foreign companies that contribute to sustainable economic growth and to strengthening existing ecosystems in the Netherlands. The result of the sharpened focus is that by 2023, more than 80% of the actively supported projects will already fit within the strategic priorities of the Netherlands.
Minister Micky Adriaansens: “Foreign companies are important for the Dutch economy. More than a quarter of the money in the Netherlands is earned there. Also, 20% of people in the business world work for a foreign company. So I would like to welcome foreign companies, especially if they can make our economy stronger, more innovative and more sustainable.”
Hilde van der Meer, Commissioner of the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA) and chairman of the Invest in Holland network: “We focus our efforts on a number of sectors, such as Energy, ICT, Life Sciences & Health and Agrifood. We look at where the opportunities and challenges lie in those ecosystems, with the aim of attracting foreign companies that complement or strengthen what we already have in the Netherlands with their innovations. We thus focus on what we want to attract as a country. Moreover, we can no longer simply collect everything. Challenges in the business climate, such as shortages on the labor market, on the electricity grid and in the physical space, underline the importance of making choices.”
Partly as a result of the sharper focus in the acquisition policy, the number of projects supervised by the Invest in Holland network in 2023 (217) is lower than in previous years (326 in 2022 and 424 in 2021). The share of projects that fit within the strategic priorities of the Netherlands is increasingly higher. More than 80% of the projects supported in 2023 will strengthen regional (knowledge) ecosystems and contribute to the economy and society. In turn, these companies find an innovation-oriented and internationally oriented business climate in the Netherlands. Here they can further develop and market their innovations by working together within the high-quality Dutch ecosystems.
For example, the Swedish Paebbl is one of only three companies in the world that produces raw materials from CO2 filtered from the air. In 2023, Paebbl opened an R&D facility with a test setup in the Rotterdam port area, where the revolutionary process of carbon capture and use is of great value for the sustainability challenge of the industry. With its arrival, the Taiwanese Keypasco is also strengthening an important focus area for the Netherlands, namely cybersecurity. Keypasco helps companies protect their digital assets with secure and user-friendly authentication solutions. With 10 million users across 10 sectors, Keypasco is a leading player and asset to the Dutch cybersecurity cluster.
In addition to the sharper focus in the acquisition policy, other factors also influence the results of the Invest in Holland network. Investment decisions by foreign companies are influenced by, for example, weakening global economic growth, geopolitical tensions and associated uncertainty, higher raw material, energy and food prices and a changing playing field due to the de-globalization trend. Bottlenecks in the Dutch business climate, such as nitrogen problems, a tight labor market and a full electricity grid, are also increasingly creating obstacles to investment plans.
The 217 investment projects in 2023 concerned both new branches of foreign companies and expansion investments of foreign companies already established in the Netherlands. The top 5 sectors in which projects were supervised last year are High Tech Systems & Materials (51), ICT (40), Energy (25), Life Sciences & Health (19) and Agrifood (17). Of the foreign companies that invested in the Netherlands in 2023, more than a third will come from Asia (37%), followed by Europe, the Middle East and Africa (30%), North and South America (30%) and 3% from other parts of the world.
Invest in Holland and the NFIA are committed to attracting foreign companies with economic added value to our country. The organizations do not support letterbox companies or other paper constructions. The specific focus of the work is on companies that help the Netherlands achieve social goals; companies that accelerate sustainability, provide new digital applications or enable future innovations. NFIA has 26 external offices worldwide, located at Dutch embassies or consulates
Read more in the Invest in Holland Review 2023.