The President of the Union of Arab Chambers and President of the Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Samir Abdullah Nass said during a speech at the session "The Flow of Direct Investment to Arab Countries in the Middle East and North Africa: Reality, Opportunities and Challenges", within the activities of the "Annual Investment Forum 2023: Regional Focus Sessions Series", held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, with the participation of the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, His Excellency Ahmed Aboul Gheit, that "the Arab region offers prominent opportunities to attract foreign direct investment and giant international companies".
He stressed, "The Union of Arab Chambers, since its inception, has played a key role in promoting the reality of trade and investment in the Arab region, through the organization of many conferences related to investment. The most important of which is the "Conference of Arab Businessmen and Investors - Maram", which aims to promote opportunities and projects available in the Arab countries and attract investments."
The President of the Union noted, "Some Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa region have made important progress in reforming investment policies during the past ten years. In order to keep pace with the changes that have occurred in the forms of the global economy, and what the Corona pandemic imposed on the supply chain, and the paths that forced the world's economies to follow. On the other hand, there are other Arab countries, either because of the ongoing political and security conflicts in them, have not been able to make any progress in this regard, and therefore we see that foreign direct investments are concentrated in Arab countries and not others."
"The World Bank estimates that the economies of Arab countries grew by 5.5 percent in 2022, the fastest rate since 2016. However, this growth is uneven across the region, with many of its countries still grappling with the residual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additional pressures caused by the sharp rise in oil and food prices due to the war in Ukraine, rising global interest rates, as well as a slowdown in the economies of the United States, China, and the Euro", he said. President Samir Nass stressed, “More efforts are required to attract foreign direct investments to the Arab region and at the same time to enhance the reality of inter-Arab investments as they do not live up to ambitions and goals. Hence, it is necessary to stimulate new economic sectors in the knowledge economy and the digital economy, as these sectors are witnessing a large flow of investments. Arab countries should also seek to attract more investments in the fields of advanced technology, agricultural technology, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, fintech, e-commerce platforms, blockchain technology, renewable energy, smart buildings, robotics, the Internet of Things, sustainable transportation, sustainable food consumption, educational technology, and other promising foreign investment sectors.”
He concluded by saying that the ability of Arab countries to attract investment increases as they integrate and establish an integrated economic space. Attracting FDI requires not only a change of laws but economic policies inspired by good practices in industrialized countries.
For his part, the Secretary-General of the Union of Arab Chambers, Dr. Khaled Hanafi, stressed that there is an Arab reality that must be changed with regard to the investment reality, as the volume of investments during the past ten years is modest and does not live up to the level of ambitions and hopes."
He explained that although the volume of investments during the past year grew by 42 percent, this percentage was limited to certain sectors and in a limited geographical area, as the volume of investments was about $ 54 billion, while the average per capita for investment does not exceed $ 100 and this is a modest share.
He said, “If we look at the volume of inter-Arab investments, they range between 16 and 20 percent, a size that does not exceed 8 billion dollars, according to reports issued by international economic institutions, while the size of the per capita share of inter-Arab investments does not exceed 120 dollars, which is a very modest figure.”
He pointed out that everyone realizes that this reality is completely unacceptable, and therefore there is an urgent need to change this reality, through two directions: a procedural and legislative direction, which is necessary but not enough, as it is necessary to complete the inter-Arab investment agreement. This is what we are working on as the Union of Arab Chambers with the League of Arab States for this agreement to become successful as soon as possible, for the benefit of all Arab countries.
Source (Union of Arab Chambers)
