The Middle East-Africa (MEA) market has been struggling with regional tensions in recent years.  The investment climate is troubling, as there are difficulties in attracting foreign direct investment. Lately, the region has seen a shift as more investors and countries focus on boosting regional economic growth.  

The MEA market now presents investors with attractive opportunities for profit gain and returns in a broad range of sectors. From emerging industries such as finance, services and health technology to more traditional sectors including energy and construction.   

ABiQ saw the potential MEA countries present and has updated our country risk rating to broaden our country scope and provide regular overviews and insights for prospective investors.    

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought on a new set of challenges for the MEA economies. The region scores an average of 6.01 or slightly above the global average of 5, making it one of the strongest scoring regions above Latin America. 

The UAE (5.06), South Africa (5.87) and Morocco (6.02) stand out as the highest-scoring markets with scores closer to the best rating possible of 1.  

The region performs the strongest for country rewards, as most markets have above-average economic and population growth rates for the post-Covid-19 period. Improving relative political risk, strong economic fundamentals and the rapid adoption of technology account for a country’s higher rank.