Xinhua, Dubai :
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is expected to attract 14.4 billion U.S. dollars foreign direct investments in 2014, representing a 20 percent year-on-year increase, undersecretary for the Ministry of Economy and Foreign Trade said here Thursday.
Speaking ahead of the Annual Investment Meeting 2014, Abdulla Al-Saleh said the UAE benefited a lot in 2013 from global economic recovery, its liberal and open economy, and Dubai’s winning of the bid to host the World Expo in 2020.
The expected growth in foreign direct investments will be mostly driven by more projects in Dubai which are planned to upgrade infrastructures in the emirates for holding the exposition, according to the official.
Meanwhile, according to the International Monetary Fund, the gross domestic product of the UAE, a major oil supplier, grew in 2013 by four percent and is expected to continue the growth by four percent in 2014.
Barclays Bank also said in a study that it sees the growth peak driven by the Expo 2020 reach in five years, and expects the emirates to grow by 10.5 percent from 2018 to 2021. It added that the event would help create 277,000 jobs and revenues of 84 billion Dirham, or 22.9 billion dollars.
Asked whether it was not too late to invest after the stock markets and real estate sector in the UAE rose sharply in 2013, Al- Saleh said “anyone who thinks of bubbles will miss a great opportunity for investing here.”
Stock market indexes in Dubai and Abu Dhabi rose by 115 percent and 63 percent respectively in 2013, and the housing prices climbed by around 30 percent in the emirates, according to the real estate research firm Jones Lang LaSalle.
