Foreign direct investment: Montréal earns top spot!

This recognition shows how well Montréal International (MI), Greater Montréal’s investment promotion agency, performed using a precisely targeted FDI strategy. “By targeting priority regions and strategic sectors, our prospecting efforts enabled us to achieve record results in 2019 and to expand the city’s growth niches, such as artificial intelligence, video games, visual effects, fintech, software development and life sciences,” said Stéphane Paquet, President and CEO of MI.

By leveraging this strategy, in 2019 MI supported 89 foreign companies to set up or expand in the region, for record investments totalling $2.642 billion. These projects helped create 7,712 direct jobs, with an average salary of $84,407. Despite the long months spent in lockdown, MI achieved the best quarter in its history in 2020 by facilitating $1.38 billion worth of international investment.

Note that MI also supports Greater Montréal’s economic attractiveness with its promotion and prospecting efforts among qualified foreign workers and international students.

Greater Montréal, second-best Mid-Sized American City of the Future

Greater Montréal also made a mark by earning second place, after San Francisco, in the Top 20 Tier 2 Cities of the Future 2020/2021 overall ranking. Montréal stood out in the Economic Potential category, where it placed second after San Francisco, as well as in the Human Capital and Lifestyle category, where it ranked second again, after Adelaide, Australia. Greater Montréal also earned top spot for the number of FDI projects in R&D among the 116 locations analyzed, accounting for a third of all FDI projects tallied between May 2015 and April 2020 in the region.

About the fDi Magazine rankings

The Tier 2 Cities of the Future 2020/2021 ranking is part of fDi Magazine’s Cities of the Future series designed to identify the most promising destinations around the world for future inward investment. Data was collected for 116 locations and analyzed for the study under five categories: Economic Potential, Human Capital and Lifestyle, Business Friendliness, Cost Effectiveness and Connectivity. In addition, surveys were collected under a sixth category, FDI Strategy, for which there were 27 submissions. The top locations in this category were given bonus points, which contributed to their overall score.

For more details about the ranking, visit the fDi Magazine website.