Qatar's outbound FDI total $6.9bn in 2018: Report

Qatar's outbound foreign direct investment (FDI) amounted to $6.9bn in 2018, according to the FDI Report 2019.

Doha’s outbound FDI constituted more than 13% of the total FDI outflows from the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region; said the report based on the FDi Markets database of the Financial Times, which tracks greenfield investment projects.

The outbound FDI from the MEA region totalled $51.7bn in the review period.

Qatar made investments in 25 outbound projects in 2018 and the region as a whole witnessed 565 such projects.

The FDI into the MEA by project numbers increased 7% year-on-year to 1,253 in 2018 with capital investment expanding 14%.

The FDI projects into the Middle East remained "stable" by number of projects with a 2% annual increase to 586, while capital investments shot up 64% to $61.1bn.

On the global front, greenfield FDI strengthened with the number of FDI projects increasing 7% to 14,845 in 2018 with capital investments growing 42% to $917.3bn and a 25% jump in job creation to 2.3mn.

China replaced the US as the highest ranked country for FDI by capital investment with $107.2bn recorded, boosted by major announcements from Faxconn and BASF totalling $19bn.

The US was the highest ranked country for FDI by number of projects, witnessing 1,581 announcements compared with China's 796 projects.

The report found that coal, oil and natural gas maintained the top spot for capital investment in 2018 with $134.6bn of FDI recorded.

The FDI in real estate increased to 1,146 projects mainly due to the rising popularity of co-working locations, it said, adding the top three sectors by number of projects in 2018 were software and IT services, business services and real estate, with realty replacing financial services, which was the third ranked sector of 2017.

Software and IT services maintained its place as the top sector for project numbers with 2,360 in 2018, down 1% year-on-year.

The hotels and tourism sector witnessed a "significant" increase of 120% by number of projects, rising from 234 in 2017 to 514 in 2018. The sector also registered an increase of 187% in capital investment.

The number of FDI projects in the renewable energy sector hit their highest level since 2008, with 364 projects recorded globally and a cumulative capital investment of $82.4bn.