Despite a slowdown in emerging markets and a commensurate decline in foreign direct investment flows across many developing countries, real estate developers appear to have remained bullish, with Chinese developers driving much of the recent growth in cross-border greenfield investment in the sector.
Of the top 20 countries receiving such investment last year, all but four were emerging markets, according to fDi Markets, an FT data service. The top three cities for capital investment of this kind were Dubai, Seoul and Kuala Lumpur, with Pemba (Mozambique) fifth. As a country, the UK received the most capital investment, at about $12bn, but China was close on its heels with $10bn. Mozambique received $8bn and South Korea and Malaysia got $6bn each.
Real estate was the largest sector driving greenfield cross-border investment globally in 2014, according to a report from fDi Intelligence, a data division of the Financial Times group. An estimated $81bn was invested in greenfield real estate projects last year, accounting for 12 per cent of all global greenfield investments and just edging out coal, oil and natural gas to be the largest FDI sector by capital investment. There were 425 such projects worldwide last year, a 48 per cent increase on 2013.