Over the year 2000, most investments in the Arab Middle East by foreign companies have been directed towards Egypt and Saudi Arabia, focusing on natural resources and privatizations.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to the Arab Middle East have tripled during the years 2000, reching $3.4 billion, up from about one billion dollars in 1999.
Nonetheless, this figure constitutes a mere fraction of overall worldwide FDI, acording to Munji Hamdi, an economist at the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Quoted by the French news agency, AFP, Hamdi noted that investments by foreign companies in western Asia still do not exceed 0.3 percent of the total direct foreign investment in the world and 1.4 percent of the direct foreign investment into developing countries.
Hamdi referred to figures published in a UNCTAD report, focusing on the region of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), which is made up of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinian Authority. — (Mena Report)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
