Oman ranked second in attracting projects in Arab region

Business Saturday 22/July/2017 17:31 PM
By: Times News Service
Oman ranked second in attracting projects in Arab region

Kuwait: Oman stood at the second position among countries that received maximum projects within the Arab region in 2016, said a report released by the Arab Investment and Export Credit Guarantee Corporation.
According to the report, Saudi Arabia topped the list, with 21 per cent of the total number of inter-Arab investment projects, followed by the Sultanate at 12 per cent and Egypt at less than 12 per cent.
The report added that the Sultanate came forth in terms of countries receiving inter-Arab investment projects during the period from 2003 to 2016, with 238 projects or 9 per cent of the total number of projects, which stood at 2,525.
The total cost of the inter-Arab investment projects stood at $12.78 billion. In 2016, 91 Arab companies started 142 new projects in the region and outside at a total cost of $22.2 billion. These projects generated 26,600 new jobs. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the Sultanate in 2016 stood at $142 million, the report added.
The FDI in the Sultanate increased from $5.95 billion in 2006 to $18.75 billion in 2016.
The number of foreign projects in the Sultanate during the period from 2003 to 2016 stood at 571 and cost $49.63 billion and generated 95,679 jobs in 418 companies.
The Sultanate was placed seventeenth in the Arab region, in terms of FDI to the Arab states in 2016 at $142 million, after the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Sudan, Tunisia, Qatar, Libya, Somalia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Palestine and Djibouti.
The influx of FDI to the Arab world increased by 25 per cent in 2016 to hit $30.8 billion, compared with $24.6 billion in 2015.
The report also pointed out that the incoming FDIs to the Arab world last year comprised 1.8 per cent of the total number of investments, which stood at 1774 billion or 4.8 per cent of the developing countries ($646 billion).
UAE topped the list of the countries receiving FDIs in 2016 with $9 billion, followed by Egypt with about $8.1 billion and Saudi Arabia with about $7.5 billion.