Recently, The World Investment Report 2017 by United Nations’ Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) shows that the UAE is the 12th most earned foreign direct investment (FDI) with an impressive inflow of $9 billion in 2016. The report also reveals that other countries, such as Bahrain, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia surpassed the rest in the region. Unfortunately, it’s a whole different story for the investment market globally as its FDI is expected to decrease by 2% or $1.75 trillion, according to UNCTAD.
Furthermore, the Minister of Economy, Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansouri, predicts that FDIs over the coming five years will surge following the launch of mega projects for renewal energy and retail industries. He also noted that growing FDIs to the UAE advanced from $109 billion by the end of 2015, to $117.9 billion by the end of 2016. With which an impressive 8.2% came from the escalating investments in transformational, aviation and tourism industries. “The country is developing well thought-out strategies in line with the National Agenda of the UAE Vision 2021 by aligning efforts and ensuring synergies across all sectors at the federal and local levels in alignment with the directives of our wise leadership,” the minister added.
Given such a significant data, the UAE ranked the second top recipient across west Asia with a 32.3% of total FDIs coming to the region last year 2016. This is a good news for the business Setup UAE and foreign investors as we can only expect to see further growth for the coming years.