Dubai: The UAE attracted a record $48.3 billion in foreign direct investment in 2025, up 6 per cent, and a fourth consecutive record. That now equals 3.1 per cent of global flows. But what is the country doing with all that capital? A new white paper argues that the UAE knows how to turn capital into jobs, skills and technology.
According to a study from White Paper Media Consulting (WPM), a UAE-based strategic research house, nations no longer have to only attract foreign capital, they also have to show the real returns on FDI in the intangible value it embeds within the host economies. And UAE has become a fitting example of having managed to do so.
The UAE ranked ninth globally for FDI inflows and first in the Middle East, ahead of other countries in the GCC. It also announced 1,562 greenfield projects worth $34.1 billion in capital expenditure, or 1.8 per cent of the global total. That places it second worldwide by project count for a third year running.
Create value through jobs
The jobs data stands out the most. The UAE created about 2,816 jobs for every $1 billion of greenfield FDI between 2019 and 2023, up from 2,265 in the previous five years. The OECD average stood at 2,318 and 1,880 over the same periods.
