The Republic has been ranked 13th out of the world's top 30 economies for attracting foreign direct investment by a new index that will act as an "early warning signal" for the State's competitiveness.
The quarterly National Irish Bank /OCO investment performance index suggests that the Republic is punching above its weight when it comes to enticing multinationals to invest.
The index, which adjusts the capital investment and number of jobs created according to the size of each country's economy, shows that the Republic was one of the leading developed western economies for inward investment in the first nine months of 2007, with only Belgium and Switzerland ranked higher.
National Irish Bank chief economist Ronnie O'Toole said the countries that had attracted more investment - such as India, which took the top spot - all maintained substantial cost advantages over the Republic. Poland, Thailand, Argentina and China comprised the rest of the top five.
Dr O'Toole said it was important to have a measure of inward investment, as it had fuelled the Celtic Tiger economy and would form the basis of export performance in the next couple of years.
"This will be a very strong indicator of our competitiveness, and an early warning signal if our competitiveness was to slip."
A separate report on world investment published by the UN Conference on Trade and Development yesterday said the flow of foreign direct investment into the Republic increased to $13 billion (€9.2 billion) in 2006.
However, the National Irish Bank/OCO index showed that the first three-quarters of 2007 had not been as strong for inward investment as previous years.
