UAE tops Arab countries for FDIs in 2016

The United Arab Emirates tops the list of Arab countries for Foreign Direct Investment, FDI, inflows, with around US$ 9 billion, AED33.3 billion, during 2016 followed by Egypt then the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the third place, according to the Arab Investment and Export Credit Guarantee Corporation, Dhaman.

As per the investment climate report issued by the Kuwait-based company, GCC states outperformed other Arab countries in terms of FDI inflows during 2016, and even improved as compared to the 2015 levels.

The investment index helps decision makers to gauge weaknesses and strengths for each nation in terms of its ability to attract FDI in a way that develops more investment-conducive policies and devise measures needed to improve the climate environment.

The report, which relies on the World Investment Report 2017 released by UN Conference for Trade and Development, UNCTAD, along with a number of other data bases related to FDIs around the world as well as other national sources, mentioned that FDI inflows to Arab countries increased 25 percent to $30.8 billion in 2016 from $24.6 billion in 2015, remarking that investments bound to Arab countries claimed 1.8 percent of the total world investment inflows in 2016 and 4.8 percent of those received by developing world countries which totaled $646 billion for the same year.

The 2016’s FDIs continued to be focused on a limited number of Arab countries, with the UAE and Egypt comprising 80 percent thereof, according to the report.

In the meantime, investment outflows from Arab nations declined by14 percent to $31.3 billion, accounting for 2.2 percent of the world’s total outflows, estimated at $1542 billion, and 8.2 percent of outflows from developing countries, put at $383 billion for the same monitoring period.

According to the report, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Lebanon are, respectively, the main sources for investment outflows for 2016, claiming 74 percent of total investments from Arab countries. In the meantime, FDI inflows resumed to Kuwait with a total of $6.3 billion.

As per the FDI market database, a total of 616 companies in 2016 launched 773 new foreign investment enterprises in Arab countries with a total investment cost of $94 billion, creating more than 115 thousand job opportunities, with Egypt coming in front of the pack receiving investment projects worth $40.9 billion, claiming 44.3 percent of total such investment projects across the region, followed by Saudi Arabia with 12.8 percent and the UAE with10.6 percent. China tops the list of major investors in the region with investments amounting to $29.5 billion, claiming 31.9 percent of the market, followed by the UAE with $15.2 billion, 16.4 percent, and then the US with total investments of $7 billion- 7.6 percent.

In terms of intra-Arab investment projects, a total of 91 companies launched 142 developments in the region outside their borders at a total investment cost of $22.2 billion which created around 26.6 thousand job opportunities. Egypt comes on top of nations receiving these investments claiming 60.4 percent of the total, followed by KSA with 23.4 percent, then Jordan with 3.4 percent.

In the meantime, the UAE came second to none in terms of investments launched outside the home market, claiming 69.4 percent of the total cross-border Arab investments, followed by Saudi Arabia with 20.9 percent, and Egypt with 3.7 percent. The real estate platform comes on top of the sectors receiving intra-Arab investment projects, receiving $18.13 billion of investments- 85.2 percent of the total, followed by the food, tobacco, energy, renewable energy and telecommunication sectors.