Just in the first six months of 2011 direct foreign investment has doubled last year’s totals, data from Croatian National Bank (HNB) shows.

The investments so far amount to 485.3 million Euros. Last year’s total of 232.5 million Euros was the lowest amount in the last 15 years. The record high was registered in 2008 when foreign investments amounted to 4.2 billion Euros.

Banks - or financial mediation - were the most frequent destinations for foreign money in the first six months of 2011 (286.5 million Euros). Right behind come metal manufacturing activities (173.8 million Euros), investments in real estate businesses (97.1 million Euros) and real estate purchases (74.2 million Euros).

Americans are the largest investors so far this year, followed by Austrians (138.1 million Euros) and Germans (44.3 million Euros).

Since 1992, Croatia received 24.72 billion Euros of foreign investment led by Austria (6.2 billion Euros), the Netherlands (3.7 billion Euros), and Germany (three billion Euros).

Foreign investors put most money in banks (8.7 billion Euros), followed by wholesale trade (2.7 billion Euros), oil derivatives production (1.6 billion Euros), real estate businesses (1.5 billion) and chemical industry (1.2 billion Euros).

According to HNB data, Croatian firms invested 59.1 million Euros abroad so far this year. The total investments abroad have been four billion Euros since 1993.