Inward investment into Europe continued its downward trend in 2009, according to Ernst & Young’s European Investment Monitor.

The European Investment Monitor, which is researched and powered by Oxford Intelligence, examines figures for international investments into Europe; it highlighted the downturn by showing an 11 per cent decrease in investments in 2009.

Europe, which had previously attracted 3,718 investments in 2008, managed only 3,303 investments in 2009, whilst job numbers fell from 148,333 to 124,923, a drop of approximately 16 per cent.

The UK, however, retained its position as the most attractive destination for inward investment in Europe in 2009, attracting 678 new investments.

Marc Lhermitte, Ernst & Young Advisory Partner, said: “Investors, whether internally within Europe or externally from the US and the Far East, have focused on proven markets with scale. Central and Eastern Europe generally, and many of the smaller countries in Western Europe, have seen dramatic drops in project numbers as investors have flown to the safety of bigger, safer economies like the UK, France and Germany.”

The report stated that the big European economies held up relatively well in terms of their ability to attract inward investment in 2009. Projects numbers in the UK were down only one per cent, while those in France, Italy and Germany were up one per cent, four per cent and seven per cent respectively.

Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey, however, bucked the trend of decline in Eastern Europe by all posting increases in the number of projects in 2009.

The Spanish and Irish economies, which historically have had particular appeal to investors outside Europe, were hit particularly hard in 2009, and as a result their project numbers were down.

Most drastically affected though were Poland, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic, where project numbers fell collectively by 40 per cent on a year-on-year basis.