The UAE remained the largest recipient of FDI with flows increasing from $19.88 billion in 2020, to $20.7 billion in 2021.
The United Arab Emirates has been ranked as the best country in the Arab World in terms of attraction of Foreign direct investment (FDI) for 2021, according to the newly released United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) World Investment Report 2022.
The UAE remained the largest recipient of FDI with flows increasing from US$19.88 billion in 2020, to US$20.7 billion in 2021.
The report showed that global flows of FDI recovered to pre-pandemic levels last year, reaching US$1.58 trillion, an increase of 64 percent compared to 2020.
In May, Dubai achieved the top ranking globally in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2021, with a record number of 418 greenfield FDI projects.
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The annual ‘DUBAI FDI Results and Rankings Highlights Report 2021’ ranked Dubai first globally in attracting greenfield FDI projects in 2021, up from the third position last year, with a staggering 418 greenfield FDI projects. The report was based on data from the Financial Times Ltd. ‘fDi Markets’, the world’s leading source of data on greenfield FDI projects.
Moreover, ‘fDi Markets’ data for the year 2021 showed that Dubai continued to maintain and improve on its lead position across key FDI attraction metrics, ranking first in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), and third globally, up from fourth place last year, in FDI capital inflows. In Reinvestment FDI projects, Dubai ranked first in the MENA region and third globally, (up from fourth place last year), and seventh globally, (up from eleventh-place last year), in FDI capital inflows. As for FDI job creation, Dubai ranked first in the MENA region and fifth globally, up from the sixth-place last year.
In another testament to Dubai’s ever-evolving investment environment, the emirate ranked first in MENA and tenth globally in Global Venture Capital FDI Projects, according to the ‘Global Venture Capital FDI Ranking 2022’ report published by ‘fDi Intelligence’ based on data gathered during 2003-2021. Further data from ‘Dubai FDI Monitor,’ supported by MAGNiTT, revealed that 84 Dubai-based startups successfully attracted Venture Capital (VC) Backed FDI worth AED2.34 billion in 2021.