Focusing on the latest trends in foreign direct investment (FDI) and its growth prospects in emerging markets, the Annual Investment Meeting (AIM 2014) began at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Center.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, opened the event that has an attendance of decision-makers, officials, investors, entrepreneurs, experts, analysts and academics from different countries.

“The event will focus on the investment partnerships in order to achieve sustainable growth in emerging markets,” Sultan bin Saeed Al-Mansouri, UAE Minister of Economy, remarked in his opening speech. “We realize that through these collaborative efforts, we can build a better world,” said the minister.

“We are delighted on the large turnout to this event that attracted 110 official delegations along with many dignitaries from around the world representing variety of sectors,” he added.

“According to many economic analysts, the global economic growth will reach 3.7 percent during this year and will increase to 3.9 percent in 2015,”Al-Mansouri added.

Majid Jafar, CEO of Crescent Petroleum and vice-chairman of the Crescent Group, addressed a plenary session on “Going for Gold in Frontier and emerging markets as investment destinations”

He outlined the attractiveness of certain key “frontier” markets — a subset of emerging markets which, in a low growth post-2007 era in mature markets, is crucial for finding new investment opportunities and potentially providing a positive social and environmental impact at the same time.

These frontier markets have several key features that Jafar believes makes them viable investment opportunities today: improved currency hedging techniques, developing international standards in regulation and governance, rapidly improving infrastructure especially in transportation and telecommunications, the globalization of education and knowledge and a general trend toward better governance and political stability in many countries which are all contributing to business opportunities in growth markets unforeseeable a generation ago.

He also described how many UAE companies have already become regional and global leaders in their sectors, and how in general “south to south” investment between countries in the developing world was seeing a marked increasing trend: “UAE companies have already successfully invested in more than 100 countries worldwide, a total exceeding $100 billion already in total,” Majid Jafar added.

“We as the Crescent Group have current investments in 22 countries throughout the region and internationally, in sectors such as oil & gas, ports and logistics, power and engineering, real estate and construction, and private equity.

Another session on ‘The Evolving international regulatory framework for FDI, new Developments and Implications for Frontier and Emerging Markets’ discussed national and international regulatory frameworks for FDI for laying the parameters for the operations of multinational enterprises. State-level regulatory frameworks are restricting FDI and the need of the hour is more open approach.