Analyzing FDI Key Trends in Egypt

Updated 2/1/2025 9:00:00 AM

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a key driver for sustainable economic growth, technology transfer, and capital inflows. For Egypt, FDI is a primary source of sustainable foreign currency inflows. The Minister of Investment and Foreign Trade announced that FDI inflows to Egypt hit a historic record of $46.1 billion, compared to only $10 billion in the previous year, largely driven by the Ras El-Hekma mega deal.

In this Factsheet, we will dig deep to identify the main trends in FDI inflows to and outflows for Egypt during fiscal year (FY) 2023/24, highlighting the country’s global and regional position as an FDI recipient in 2023.

The UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2024 showed that Egypt maintained its position as Africa’s top FDI recipient, capturing 19% of the continent’s total inflows. Globally, Egypt acquired 8% of total FDI.
Generally, Egypt has five key sources of foreign currency, including tourism revenues, Suez Canal revenues, exports, remittances from Egyptians abroad, and FDI. In FY2023/24, FDI accounted for 43% of total foreign currency inflows from the mentioned sources.
In FY2023/24, FDI inflows to Egypt hit $56.7 billion, marking an annual growth rate of 146% from $23.1 billion in FY2022/23, mainly due to the Ras El-Hekma mega deal.
Inflows in FY2023/24 mainly came from the UAE, the USA, the UK, Italy, and the Netherlands, collectively investing $48 billion in the Egyptian economy, 5% of total inflows.
In FY2023/24, FDI inflows to the oil sector accounted for 10% of total inflows, while the non-oil sector received 90%.
The construction sector accounted for 63.4% of FDI inflows to Egypt. The services sector, including real estate, finance, tourism, information technology, and more, attracted around 15.7% of FDI inflows. Meanwhile, manufacturing activities represented 8% of the inflows in FY2023/24.
Egyptian investments abroad were mainly concentrated in Italy, the USA, the UK, the UAE, and the Netherlands during FY2023/24, totaling $7.9 billion, 74% of the total FDI outflows.
Italy alone received $2.9 billion in investments from Egypt, making up two-thirds of the Arab country’s total inflows to the European Union (EU) in FY2023/24.
In FY2023/24, FDI outflows were mainly directed to the oil sector, which received more than half of the Egyptian FDI outflows, followed by the manufacturing sector with a share of 19% and the services sector with 18.4%.

By: Amina Hussein