The Department of Economic Development - Abu Dhabi, ADDED, has signed separate service level agreements concerning investor services with a number of government departments.

ADDED signed agreements with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, the Department of Municipal Affairs and Transport, Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, Mubadala Development Company, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, the Media Zone Authority, the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi General Services Company, Musanada, and the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority.

The agreements aim to enhance institutional cooperation between ADDED and government departments in the field of foreign investor services, and to set a general, systematic and organised framework for data and service sharing among the parties of the agreements, in addition to fostering capabilities and competencies to attract Foreign Direct Investment, FDI, to Abu Dhabi and promote collaboration among respective stakeholders.

Commenting on the agreements, Khalifa bin Salem Al Mansouri, ADDED Acting Under-Secretary, said, "The agreements will help align common efforts of government entities in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi to provide foreign investors with distinguished services through a single common investors window which allows them to access all investment and economic data about the emirate and make it easier for them to get acquainted with the laws, regulations, procedures and information, thus helping more foreign direct investments to come to the Emirate of Abu Dhabi."

According to estimates from the Statistics Centre – Abu Dhabi, SCAD, the total foreign direct investment in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi grew by 8.9 percent in 2015 to reach AED88.324 billion compared with AED81.112 billion in 2014.

Direct foreign investment in manufacturing industries in 2015 amounted to 18.9 percent, or AED16.710 billion, with a growth rate of 7.8 percent compared with its 2014 level of AED15.502 billion.

Investments in real estate activities took 27.1 percent of direct foreign investment in 2015, or AED23.897 billion. Meanwhile, foreign investments in financial and insurance activities increased from AED 12.731 billion in 2014 to AED 14.442 billion in 2015.

Direct foreign investments in the extraction industries grew by 13.7 percent, or AED 8.012 billion in 2015. This constituted 9.1 percent of the total direct foreign investment in the same year.