Dubai authorities do their best to attract foreign investors to the region, as well as qualified personnel to make Dubai a global center for technology, commerce, finance, and culture. And these efforts have been crowned with success — over 500 different projects involving FDI and more than 25,000 new jobs for medium and high-tech projects in a year is a brilliant result.
The total amount of direct investment from abroad alone was about $10.5 billion (AED 38.5 billion), and this is 43% more than the same figure for the previous year, that is, local authorities managed to make visible progress on this issue.
Over 500 new investment projects involving money from other countries have raised the Emirate from fourth to third place in the global ranking of jurisdictions in terms of the number of new investment projects.
25,000 new jobs make the region even more attractive for foreign specialists of the various profiles. Mainly highly-qualified personnel for high-tech engineering projects is requested for the FDI projects.
As it was noted by Fahad Al Gergawi, CEO of Dubai FDI, the result obtained is the highest figure in the last decade of economic development in Dubai. And this is another additional signal for new investors – you can do business here, and it is profitable!
One of the most important indicators is the FDI growth rate – Dubai has no peers in the whole world in this. As for foreign direct investment in high-tech areas, for example, in artificial intelligence, Dubai took third place, which also speaks to the positive dynamics of the development of modern industry and IT.
As for now, FDI in Dubai provide about 6% of the country’s GDP, and given the positive dynamics, we can talk about significant success in diversifying the economy, according to Mr. Al Gergawi.
In many ways, the region owes this success to the international World Show, Expo 2020, which will be held here in Dubai. But local authorities are not going to stop at the achieved result, and the government has a development plan, which includes a number of events, so they are not going to stop at Expo 2020. Many other promising and essential events will attract foreign investors' interest in Dubai.
Local authorities work on attracting investment in medium and large projects from AED 2 million and above. Already now there is some success in large projects with investments above AED 50 million in companies with a total value of over AED 300 million.
Net foreign investments, mergers, and Greenfield
An attractive ecosystem has been created in Dubai to involve FDI from the point of view of building a new business and buying existing companies, opening representative offices and regional centers.
Dubai takes third place in the world in attractiveness for Greenfield projects. A greenfield project is when a foreign company opens its subsidiary, wholly owned by the parent company.
That is, when, for example, such a giant as Amazon opens its representative office in Dubai (as it has recently happened), thousands of new jobs are created, and such a project is considered a Greenfield project.
Or, for example, the purchase of the Careem project by Uber in Dubai. Thus, the region has become the center of mergers and acquisitions, attracting millions of dollars in investment.
NFI accounts for almost 30% of total investments in 2018.
Foreign companies through other types of investments have a significant influence on the local economy. For example, the Marriott corporation does not build its hotels, but takes control over already existing facilities, using its knowledge of marketing, your brand, and its hotel management skills.
If we consider the volume of foreign investment, the leading positions are taken by the United States (37%), India (12%), Spain (9%), PRC, (7%) and the United Kingdom (5%). A rather large flow of investments is directed to the construction industry and the hotel and restaurant business, in addition, the financial sector and insurance are in demand.
