RTL Today - Eurostat: Luxembourg tops EU ranking for foreign-controlled enterprises

Foreign-controlled companies accounted for 88.6% of Luxembourg’s services exports in 2023, the highest share in the European Union.

According to new Eurostat data, Luxembourg was followed by Ireland (79.1%) and the Netherlands (63.7%) in the share of foreign-controlled service exports.

Across the EU, services worth €1.44 trillion were exported to countries outside the bloc. More than half of this total, 53.5%, came from large enterprises with at least 250 employees. Small firms accounted for 14.2% of exports, medium-sized businesses for 10%, and 22.3% came from companies whose size was not reported.

Large enterprises dominated exports in Germany (72.8%), Finland (66.7%) and Denmark (66%), while Malta (68.4%) and Estonia (59.6%) stood out for the high share of small-company exporters.

In Luxembourg, the dominance of foreign-controlled exporters underlines how globalised the country’s services sector has become. Financial, fund management and professional service firms headquartered abroad account for much of the country’s trade, a structure that makes the Grand Duchy highly exposed to international market shifts.

By contrast, exports were mainly driven by domestically controlled firms in Denmark (70%), Finland (62.3%), Malta (59.8%) and France (59.3%).