Abu Dhabi to attract $12 bn capital investments

ABU DHABI - Abu Dhabi will attract new capital investments worth more than 45 billion dirhams (about $12 billion) over the next five years, WAM news agency said citing an official report.

The investments will be made by the existing as well as new companies to be set up in the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) capital over the period.

The emirate would remain a favourite place for investors during the period as it is pursuing a strong economic reform-agenda, the report said Friday.

Despite the global financial crisis, the Abu Dhabi economy continued to grow steadily. “Abu Dhabi has won investor’s confidence as it attracted more investments due to the several policy initiatives launched in recent years,” said economist Riad Mattar.

A total of 11,357 private companies have invested over 5.7 billion dirhams in new capital investments in Abu Dhabi, a growth of 40 percent over the year before, when the number of firms stood at 8,124, according to the report.

The commercial sector has topped the list by attracting capital investment in excess of 4.9 billion dirhams. Investment in the professional, industrial and handicraft segments of the economy stood at 271 million, 453 million and 132 million dirhams respectively.

The commercial sector has the largest number of new firms at 7,962, followed by handicraft at 2,728, professional at 479 and industrial at 188 in the emirate.

But in terms of the increase in the number of firms, the industrial sector topped the ranking with a growth rate of 112 percent, taking the total number of firms to 188 in 2009, from 89 in the previous year.

The professional sector came on the second place recording a rise of 44.5 percent to 479 in 2009, from 332 in 2008. With a growth rate of 41 percent, the firms in the commercial sector grew to 7,962, while companies dealing in handicraft sector grew by 30 percent.

Investors from Italy invested capital worth 254 million dirhams, followed by Japan at 104 million dirhams and China 76 million dirhams.

In the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) region, largest capital investments were made by investors from Saudi Arabia, with 68 million dirhams, followed by Bahrain, with 46 million dirhams. The gross foreign investment of these countries totalled 548 million dirhams.

Investment of national companies through joint ventures or individual companies stood at about 5 billion dirhams in 2009.

In terms of the number of new companies, Egypt took the lead with 476 firms, Pakistan 449, Bangladesh 319, India 232, and Afghanistan 105.

The total investment of the 71,100 companies registered in Abu Dhabi is over 840 billion dirhams. A breakdown showed that the commercial sector have the largest contribution with 834.2 billion dirhams, industrial 3.2 billion dirhams and professional firms 2.1 billion dirhams.