CAIRO, July 14 (Xinhua) -- Egypt ranks in the second place among Arab countries in the foreign direct investment (FDI) flows, with a rate of 27%, according to a 2017 report published by the Kuwait-based Arab Investment and Export Credit Guarantee Corporation.
Egypt came second after the United Arab Emirates, ahead of Saudi Arabia, which ranked third, then Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Sudan, Tunisia and Qatar, according to the report.
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 services.
In May, Egypt's parliament has passed a long-delayed investment law to streamline doing business in Egypt and to create incentives it hopes will bring back investors' dollars after years of turmoil.
The new investment law includes a raft of new incentives such as a 50 percent tax discount on investments made in underdeveloped areas and government support for the cost connecting utilities to new projects. The law also restores private sector freeze zones.
Egypt FDI jumped to 39 percent in the first half of the current fiscal year ending in June to reach 4.3 billion dollars.
