Dubai ranked first globally for greenfield FDI projects in cultural and creative industries for the fourth consecutive year, according to fDi Markets data from the Financial Times. The emirate attracted 754 greenfield FDI projects in 2025, ahead of London, Singapore, Riyadh, and Bengaluru across 233 tracked cities. Behind that ranking sits a more specific story about which capital is placing large bets on Dubai and which capital is testing the market at smaller scale.
fDi Markets, run by the Financial Times division fDi Intelligence, has tracked greenfield FDI globally since 2003. Greenfield FDI Dubai figures cover a foreign company setting up a new operation or expanding an existing one, generating new jobs and capital investment, and exclude mergers, acquisitions, and other equity investment entirely. The data draws on media reports, industry organizations, investment promotion agencies, and market research providers, cross referenced across multiple sources, and it enters the database as projects are announced, before completion. Treat the figures below as an announcement level snapshot rather than an audited final total.
The 754 projects generated 19,304 new jobs and pulled in 3.756 billion dollars in greenfield capital, placing Dubai second globally for capital inflows in the sector. Project count and capital inflow are separate rankings, and reading them side by side by source country shows two distinct investor behaviors at work in Dubai’s greenfield FDI landscape.
India led capital inflows at 19 percent and also placed second on project count at 21 percent, a rare instance of the same market ranking near the top on both measures. This pattern points to Indian capital arriving with scale and intent, not just volume, consistent with an investor base that has studied Dubai’s creative sector and is committing meaningful capital per deal.
The United States followed at 17.5 percent of capital with 14 percent of projects, meaning American capital arrives in fewer, larger transactions. This is the profile of a strategic entrant, a company establishing a significant footprint in one move rather than testing the market with smaller commitments.
China’s 13 percent capital share and Malaysia’s 12 percent follow a similar large bet pattern, concentrated investment from a smaller number of projects, typical of investors who have already decided Dubai fits a defined expansion strategy rather than investors still evaluating the market.
The United Kingdom tells the opposite story. It led project count at 21.5 percent but captured only 9 percent of capital, the widest gap between volume and capital share in the dataset. This is the profile of the opportunity seeker, a wave of smaller UK entrants establishing a presence in Dubai’s creative sector without yet committing large capital, more consistent with market entry and positioning than full scale commitment. France’s 4 percent project share with no comparable capital ranking suggests a similar but smaller scale entry pattern.
Read together, the data separates Dubai’s greenfield FDI market into believers and opportunity seekers. India, the US, China, and Malaysia represent capital that has already concluded Dubai’s creative sector is worth a large commitment. The UK and France represent capital still establishing a footprint, placing smaller bets to secure a position before committing further.
Sector data adds the why behind both behaviors. Growth spanned advertising, specialized programming, data processing, film and gaming, AI powered creative technology, design and architecture, and logistics services supporting the sector, classified by fDi Markets under a system aligned with the North American Industry Classification System. The spread points to capital moving away from traditional cultural output and toward digital content, creative technology, and data driven services, categories where Dubai’s full foreign ownership rules, fast business setup, specialized free zones, and residency pathways for talent reduce the operational cost of testing a new market. That lower barrier to entry explains why opportunity seekers can justify smaller first moves here in a way they might not in a market requiring a local partner or slower licensing.
The Dubai Economic Agenda D33 and the Dubai Creative Economy Strategy provide the policy structure underneath both investor types, and four consecutive years leading global greenfield FDI rankings suggest the structure is working on more than one kind of investor at once, not just attracting large scale commitments in a single cycle.
