The UAE ranks first in the world in attracting foreign direct investment projects Al Khaleej Newspaper

Followed by: Khansaa Al-Zubair
The UAE achieved the best performance in the world in terms of foreign direct investment relative to the size of its economy in 2023, following the highest numbers of companies established in the country.
In the ninth edition of the Foreign Direct Investment Performance Index issued by FDA Intelligence, the UAE attracted the largest amount of foreign direct investment relative to its gross domestic product among the 108 countries evaluated.
Nominal GDP data for each country was obtained from the International Monetary Fund, with the exception of Monaco’s figures, which came from the World Bank.
About 84 of these countries received an index score higher than 1.0, which means that their share of global foreign direct investment projects was higher than their share of global GDP. The other 24 countries scored below 1.0, which means they attracted less investment than the size of their economy would suggest.
The UAE advanced two places over last year’s ranking, which shows it is the country that saw the biggest increase (over 316) in foreign direct investment projects in 2023 compared to the year before, and this growth was in the number of projects in particular. prominent in the sectors of commercial services, technology, buildings and equipment.
The UAE achieved 14.78 points, with 7.11% of foreign direct investment projects, and a domestic product of $504.17 billion, and surpassed Montenegro (11.33 points) and Costa Rica (7.89 points), which came third in the table- 2024 goals after being in first place. over the past three years. Costa Rica’s GDP is $86.51 billion, and the percentage of projects is 0.65%.
New entrants
Montenegro, with a GDP of $7.41 billion and 0.08% of projects, was a new entrant to the 2024 index, after crossing the threshold to be on the list by attracting at least 10 foreign direct investment projects in one year.
Another newcomer is Monaco (6.2 points), which was in fourth place after attracting 10 foreign direct investment projects with a GDP of $8.95 billion in 2023.
Half of the top ten in the rankings – Montenegro, Monaco, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Rwanda – recorded a GDP of less than $20 billion in 2023, which confirms the potential of smaller and emerging markets to targeting and attracting foreign direct investment projects for their part. development.
The International Monetary Fund has classified only three countries among the top 20 countries in terms of achieving foreign direct investment in 2023: Singapore, Latvia and Portugal, as advanced economies.
Other countries in the bottom ten of the rankings include Algeria (0.23), Japan (0.29), Israel (0.40), Argentina (0.41), and Ethiopia (0.42).
Regional view
At the level of the Middle East region, the UAE was ranked first with a score of 14.8 points, in addition to its global position, Bahrain came second with a score of 4.1 points, followed by Jordan with a score of 2.5 points, which was in second place. it attracted 12 more foreign direct investment projects in 2023 compared to the previous year.
Saudi Arabia saw the biggest jump, after the UAE, in foreign direct investment projects from 240 to 390, which reflects increased investment in the country’s Vision 2030 agenda.
As for the African continent, this year six new African countries were added to the classification, bringing the total number of African countries included in the classification to 19 countries across the continent (countries had to attract at least 10 foreign direct investment. projects to be included in the classification).