On Friday, Egypt’s cabinet released an infographic highlighting UNCTAD Investment Report 2023, which focused on Egypt, despite the tough challenges facing the Egyptian state and various international changes.
UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2023, published on 5 July, shows that Egypt saw Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) more than double to $11 billion as a result of increased cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) sales during 2022.
Egypt’s announced greenfield projects more than doubled in number to 161. International project finance deals rose in value by two-thirds, to $24 billion. Flows to Morocco decreased slightly, by 6%, to $2.1 billion, according to UNCTAD’s report.
The report said Egypt ranked first per FDI in Africa, while it ranked second at the level of the Arab states in 2022.
Over the past five years, FDI inflows have risen in four of the regional economic groupings on the continent.
FDI in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa grew by 14% to $22 billion. Flows rose also in the Southern African Development Community (quadrupling, to $10 billion), the West African Economic and Monetary Union (doubling, to $5.2 billion), and the East African Community (up 9%, to $3.8 billion).
The number of greenfield project announcements rose by 39% to 766 in Africa. Six of the top 15 greenfield investment megaprojects (those worth more than $10 billion) announced in 2022 were in Africa, according to a UNCTAD report.
Intraregional investment remained relatively small, despite an increase over the past five years. In 2022, intraregional greenfield project announcements represented 15% of all projects in Africa (2% in terms of value), as compared with 13% (2% in value) in 2017.
