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Abu Dhabi to attract Dh45b new capital investments

ABU DHABI - Existing and new companies to be set up in the next five years in Abu Dhabi are projected to make capital investments of over Dh45 billion, as the emirate will remain the favourite place for investors as it is pursuing a strong reform-agenda, forecasts an independent economist.

Despite the strong impact of the international financial crisis on economies around the globe, the Abu Dhabi economy has not been much affected and continued growing steadily. “Abu Dhabi has won investor’s confidence as it attracted more investments due to the several policy initiatives launched in recent years,” said Riad Mattar, an independent economist, who has worked with the public sectors 
for several years.

The economy, he said was strong enough to minimise the challenges posed by global economic crisis.

The Abu Dhabi economy lured new capital investment by 11,357 private companies estimated capital of over Dh5.7 billion, a growth of 40 per cent over the year before, when the count of firms stood at 8,124, says an official report. The commercial sector topped by attracting capital investment in excess of Dh4.9 billion. Investment in the professional, industrial and handicraft segments of economy stood at Dh271 million, Dh453 million and Dh132 million respectively.

“The commercial sector has the largest number of new firms at 7962, followed by handicraft at 2728, professional at 479 and industrial at 188 in the emirate, according to official figures.

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

The professional sector came on the second place recording a rise of 44.5 per cent to 479 in 2009 from 332 in 2008. With a growth rate of 41 per cent the firms in the commercial sector grew to 7962 while companies dealing in handicraft sector grew by 30 per cent.

Investors from Italy invested capital worth Dh254 million, followed by Japan at Dh104 million, China at
 Dh76 million.

In the GCC largest capital investments were made by investors from Saudi Arabia who invested Dh68 million followed by Bahrain’s who invested Dh46 million. The gross foreign investment of these countries totalled 
Dh548 million.

Investment of national companies through joint ventures or individual companies stood at about Dh5 billion in 2009. In terms of the number of new companies, Egypt took the lead having 476 firms; Pakistan came in the second rank with 449 new firms; Bangladesh 319; India 232; and Afghanistan 105.

Total capital of 71,100 companies registered in Abu Dhabi is well over Dh840 billion. A breakdown showed that the commercial has the largest contribution of Dh834.2 billion; industrial firms Dh3.2 billion and professional firms Dh2.1 billion. 
haseebhaider@khaleejtimes.com