Portugal accounts for just 1.3 per cent of the EU economy yet has in recent years received more Chinese investment than any member state except the UK, Germany and France.
Before 2011, nine countries — Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK — attracted 77 per cent of Chinese investment in the EU. Since then there has been a sea change, according to a recent report by law firm Baker & McKenzie, using data compiled by researchers the Rhodium Group.
“Chinese investors increasingly deployed capital in economies that were severely affected by the financial crisis [and] seized opportunities arising from the privatisation of . . . utilities and transportation infrastructure,” says the report. In Portugal, China Three Gorges paid €2.7bn for 21 per cent of Energias de Portugal (EDP) and State Grid Corporation of China spent €1.4bn on 25 per cent of Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN). Both buyers are state enterprises, but last year private conglomerate Fosun International bought 80 per cent of state-controlled Caixa Seguros Saúde, Portugal’s largest insurance group, for €1bn — and then used it to buy the hospital business Espírito Santo Saúde for €460.5m.