Kuwait City: Foreign direct investment into Arab states dropped by eight per cent last year with the UAE and Saudi Arabia attracting close to half the total funds, a report said on Sunday.
Arab states attracted FDI worth $43.9 billion in 2014 compared with $47.5bn the previous year, the Kuwait-based Arab Investment and Export Credit Guarantee Corporation said in its report.
The figure is still way below the $66.2bn attracted in 2010 before the start of the Arab Spring uprisings in several countries.
UAE topped the list of countries receiving FDI with $10.1b – 23pc of the total – followed by Saudi Arabia with $8bn, or 18.3pc. Egypt came third with $4.8bn.
The report covered 20 of the 22 Arab League states, excluding war-torn Syria and tiny Comoros. FDI dropped in 15 of them.
The GCC states drew in the most investment, accounting 49.7pc of the Arab world's total FDI, according to the report.
The report said that total FDI in the Arab world reached $789bn by the end of 2014, just 4pc of the world's total of $26 trillion. Saudi Arabia came on top with $216bn followed by UAE with $116bn and Egypt with $88bn.
Outflows of Arab investments into other countries last year dropped 10pc to $33.4bn, with Kuwait topping the list with $13bn or 39.2pc of the total, the report said.