UAE Cabinet establishes AED 36.7bn (~USD 10bn) National Investment Fund to attract FDI

Mechanism

At a special Cabinet meeting held at the Dubai Airshow on 19 November 2025, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced the National Investment Fund as the financing arm of a broader National Investment Strategy 2031. Unlike the UAE's existing sovereign-wealth vehicles (Emirates Investment Authority, Emirates Growth Fund, ADIA/Mubadala at the emirate level), the Fund is explicitly structured as an FDI-attraction incentive mechanism: it operates through (1) direct federal-level financing of "strategic opportunities" and (2) cooperation with individual emirates' economic, investment and tourism authorities to co-finance nationally significant projects. The Fund's capital (AED 36.7bn / ~USD 10bn) is described as an initial tranche, explicitly "open to future review and expansion."

The stated targets are FDI-inflow doubling (AED 115bn to AED 240bn annually) and near-tripling of cumulative inbound FDI stock (AED 800bn to AED 2.2 trillion) by 2031 — the same 2031 horizon as the UAE's 2021 Operation 300bn industrial strategy, suggesting this Fund is a financing complement to (rather than a replacement for) that earlier manufacturing-GDP push. No sector-specific allocation or eligibility criteria were disclosed in the initial announcement; GTA classifies the measure as "state aid, unspecified."

Downstream implications

• Adds a dedicated capital-allocation vehicle to the UAE's post-2017

Gulf FDI-competition stack, alongside GCC peers' investment-law and foreign-ownership liberalisation programmes (Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait) captured in the gcc-investment-liberalisation theme — but structurally closer to a sovereign co-financing instrument than a legal-ownership reform.

• Scale (~USD 10bn initial, openly stated as expandable) signals intent

to compete directly with peer Gulf sovereign funds for large-ticket foreign investment mandates, at a moment of intensifying inter-GCC competition for FDI following the Dubai Airshow's defence/aerospace deal-making window.

• Sector-agnostic design leaves broad discretion to UAE Cabinet on which

"strategic opportunities" receive direct financing — a watch item, as future disbursements naming specific sectors/companies would be amendments to this record rather than new actions.

Open questions

• Which specific sectors or companies the Fund's initial disbursements

will target — the announcement provided macro FDI targets but no named recipients or eligibility criteria.

• Governance and mandate relationship to existing federal sovereign

vehicles (Emirates Investment Authority, Emirates Growth Fund) — whether the National Investment Fund operates as a new standalone entity or a financing programme routed through an existing one.