UAE: listed in top 12 countries for Foreign Direct Investment

According to the World Investment Report 2017, released by UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), United Arab Emirates is ranked 12^th on the list of top countries for Foreign Direct Investment for the two-year period of 2017 – 2019.

“Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is considered a key enabler for supportable economic growth on account of its significant role in ensuring money inflows for mega-sized growing projects. Despite the decline in global FDI rates in 2016 comparatively with 2015, the overseas investment inflows to the country, according to the information, increased by 2.2 percent to $9 billion against $8.8 billion in 2015”, UAE Minister of Economy, has revealed.

Minister also added that the research is based on a threshold of 10 percent of equity ownership to qualify an investor as a foreign direct investor, observing that there are numerous foreign investments in the country below this 10 percent equity ownership and that’s why if these investments are calculated, the total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the country would go beyond the $9 billion mark.

Based on the big projects launched in areas of renewable energy and retail industries in UAE and the projections of the future economy, it is estimated that there will be more FDIs over the coming five years.

The cumulative FDIs to the United Arab Emirates jumped to $117.9 billion by the end of 2016 from $109 billion by the end of 2015, a growth of 8.2%, supported by growing investments in areas of transformational and other heavy industries, aluminum and petrochemicals, as well as investments in other sectors, like tourism and aviation.

Among the GCC countries included in the research, UAE claims 26.5% of the total FDI to GCC states and 16.9% of total FDI to Western Asian nations by the end of 2016.