No planned foreign investment in the UAE has been cancelled this year, Ministry of Investment says
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FDI in the UAE
Some investors are waiting or scaling back amounts, but the UAE remains on course for its US$65 billion a year FDI target for 2031, the ministry's undersecretary told The National.
No foreign direct investment planned for the UAE has been cancelled in 2026 despite the US-Iran war, Mohammad Abdulrahman Alhawi, Undersecretary of the UAE Ministry of Investment, told The National on the sidelines of the 10th HSBC Future Forum in Dubai, in an interview published on 20 October.
"Everyone we've spoken to has said: 'We haven't cancelled our plans. We are just either waiting, or we're delaying a little bit, or we're decreasing the quantum a little bit but the country is capable of making up'," he said. He said the UAE remained on target to reach annual FDI inflows of US$65 billion by 2031.
According to UNCTAD, FDI inflows into the UAE rose about 6% in 2025 to a record US$48.24 billion, the ninth highest in the world. Alhawi said the UAE expected to stay in the "$40 billion [plus] range" for a couple more years before moving towards US$65 billion. The National noted that inflows in 2026 may come in slightly below 2025.
The federal government is investing in East Coast ports, rail and oil and gas pipelines, and wants foreign partners in those projects. HSBC estimates that planned UAE infrastructure needs more than US$190 billion of funding, and that the UAE accounts for about 22% of an US$872 billion pipeline of project packages across the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey.
Mohamed Al Marzooqi, Chief Executive of HSBC UAE, said large projects such as Al Maktoum International Airport, the Dubai sewage system and developments in Fujairah have strong government backing. For foreign investors, the ministry says it is open to joint ventures with UAE sovereign funds and family offices on these projects.