World-leading business experts fDi Intelligence ranked the city above Bilbao, Porto, Dusseldorf and Gothenburg for its approaches and ability to securing foreign investment.
FDi Intelligence, which is part of the FT group, cited Glasgow’s partnerships between Government, academia, businesses and the community and the hundreds of millions of pounds in funding secured over the past 18 months to advance the innovative sectors emerging across the city region.
As well as the number one spot for its foreign direct investment strategies in the European Cities & Regions of the Future 2024, Glasgow was also ranked fifth for connectivity and 10th for business friendliness.
The rankings are based on the performance of 330 European cities. The ‘Large Cities’ category includes those cities with a population of over 500,000 and a wider urban region of over one million.
The city has improved its performance in all three categories in comparison to 2023, when Glasgow was ranked 3rd for strategy, 6th for connectivity and outside the top 10 for business-friendliness.
The news has been welcomed by City Council, business and university leaders, who said the accolade was testament to the hard work by all partners in attracting investment, which was already improving the global reputation of the city.
Councillor Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council, said: “I’m absolutely delighted to see this recognition of the impact of the City Government’s economic policies, which have transformed Glasgow’s approach to inward investment and put us in the top rank of European cities to attract high quality jobs and generate growth all our citizens can share in.
“Recent years have seen the emergence of really significant sectors in tech, the green economy, the space industry, the creative economy, and advanced manufacturing - and these will all help to drive Glasgow’s future growth and high skilled jobs.
“Taken with our recent ranking as the world’s 61st best city for global investment attractiveness, Glasgow can take real encouragement from how the world increasingly sees us.”
fDi Intelligence provides industry leading insight and analysis on global investment activity with rankings based on the economic, financial and business strengths of European cities and regions.
The City Council’s Invest Glasgow team has helped attract overseas investment which has brought over 6000 jobs in the past five year. The team have helped to bring such investment from major companies such as Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Merck KGaA, Planet DDS and Spire Global to the city.
A new investment strategy for Glasgow was launched in the Autumn of 2023, responding to the changes in the investment landscape, impacted by Brexit and the pandemic.
In its publication, which will be circulated across investment and real estate markets over the coming year, fDi Intelligence said Glasgow has leapt to number one due to the city’s “approach to innovation” which it said “has been forged in partnerships between academia, industry, government and local communities”. It cites the emergence of hi-tech and innovate firms across the city region, including 200 life science companies and the importance of the three innovation districts and five innovation centres in. It also references the new facility and expansion by German pharmaceutical group Merck as an example of the city’s ability to advance hi-tech sectors.