Egypt has ranked second among Arab countries in attracting foreign direct investment in FDI in 2016, according to a recent report issued by The Arab Investment and Export Credit Guarantee Corporation. According to the report Egypt came second after UAE with attracting USD 8.1 billion as FDI, while KSA came in the third rank. Meanwhile, Egypt topped the list of new foreign projects with a backlog total USD 40.9 billion, representing 44.1 percent of the new foreign projects in the region. The Corporation based its report on evaluating the investment climate in 109 countries, including 16 Arab countries, through attractive investment guarantee index. The report showed that the most important investors in Egypt over the past five years are China, UAE, Greece, Italy and Saudi with 22.6 U.S. billion, 17.3 billion dollars, 10 billion dollars, 8.5 billion dollars and 5.2 billion respectively. The report highlighted the most important sectors attracting investments in Egypt include food, coal, petroleum, natural gas, chemicals and real estate sectors, as well as communications, cars, textiles and industrial. Foreign direct investments in Egypt have risen 12 percent to reach $6.6 billion in the fiscal year 2016/17, compared to $5.9 billion in the same period last year. The $6.6 billion figure was for the period from July 2016 to March 2017. The country's fiscal year begins on 1 July and ends on 30 June. 1,120 companies were newly established or expanded with a capital of EGP 4.2 billion. Out of the 1,120 companies, 960 were in June 2017 with a capital of EGP 2.2 billion, compared to 913 companies with a capital of EGP 2.4 billion in June 2016.
