In the period 2018-2020, 4.8% of the enterprises carried out international sourcing of at least one of their business functions, down 2 percentage points from the period before 2018.

More than 90% of the enterprises with international sourcing carried out international trade. About 60% had at least 100 persons employed and belonged to a multinational group and 92.6% carried out international sourcing with business partners located in the European Union.

76.4% of the enterprises with international sourcing delocalized core business functions (45% of the enterprises were from manufacturing industries) and 72.9% support business functions, among which management and administration (34.9% ; 13.6% from manufacturing industries) and information technology (31.4%; 18.2% from other services sector) stand out.

The jobs lost and created as a result of international sourcing represented around 2%, in both cases, of the total number of persons employed by the enterprises in 2020.

For 40.7% of the enterprises, the strategic decisions taken by the group head were the main motivation for carrying out international sourcing.

The majority of the enterprises reported that the COVID-19 pandemic had no impact on international sourcing.