The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has just released its World Investment Report 2021, indicating that global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows dropped by -35% to USD 1 trillion in 2020 from USD 1.5 trillion in 2019, and almost -20% below the 2009 trough after the global financial crisis.
In the report, the Acting Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Isabelle Durant, explains that the Covid-19 pandemic caused a dramatic fall in FDI in 2020, bringing the flows back to the level seen in 2005.
The crisis has had an immense negative impact on the most productive types of investment, namely, greenfield investment in industrial and infrastructure projects.
This means that international production, an engine of global economic growth and development, has been seriously affected.
FDI in East Africa and Tanzania
In 2020, FDI to East Africa dropped to USD 6.5 billion, a -16% decline from 2019.
FDI to Kenya decreased by -34% to USD 717 million, compared with USD 1.098 billion in 2019
FDI to Uganda decreased by -35% to USD 823 million, compared with USD 1.3 billion in 2019.
However, FDI to Tanzania sightly increased to USD 1.0 billion in 2021 from USD 991 million in 2019.
And the approval of the construction of the 1,400 km East African Crude Oil Pipeline worth USD 3.5 billion connecting Uganda’s oil fields with the Tanga seaport in Tanzania augurs well for Investment to both countries.
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