This week, more than a thousand companies will gather in Abu Dhabi for Make it in the Emirates – the most ambitious edition yet, under the theme of “Emerging Stronger”. In recent weeks, the UAE has demonstrated, in real time and under real pressure, what a generation of disciplined nation-building has produced.
Our leadership has met the moment with the clarity for which the country is known. A Dh1 billion ($272 million) National Industrial Resilience Fund. A reinforced In-Country Value programme. A national drive to localise more than 5,000 critical products. These are decisive moves, resting on foundations laid over decades – non-oil sectors now contributing more than three-quarters of the gross domestic product, comprehensive economic partnerships with three dozen high-growth economies, infrastructure connecting the UAE to over 180 countries, sovereign funds of about $2.5 trillion, and foreign reserves above $280 billion.
What the past weeks have shown is that this preparation works. Alternative logistics routes activated at speed. Our East Coast ports absorbed surges of more than 20 times their normal cargo flow. Markets remained open. Capital continued to flow in both directions. These are not abstract statistics – they are shock absorbers the world now sees in action. Foreign direct investment last year reached $45.6 billion, a 49 per cent year-on-year increase, placing the UAE 10th in the world on a metric we measure and report proudly.
Alongside this important story, a second one is being written every day – and it deserves to be told with the same clarity.
It is the story of the capital being placed into Emirati industry by the businesses, families and investors who have made this country home. Our leadership has long made clear that everyone who lives, works, builds and invests here is an intrinsic part of the national project. The conviction they collectively express through their capital is one of the UAE’s most valuable assets.
Different countries name it differently – domestic direct investment in Indonesia, gross private domestic investment in the US, domestic investment in our own statistical accounts. The substance is the same: capital that residents invest inside their own economy. By that measure, the UAE story is already remarkable: IMD’s World Competitiveness Yearbook 2025 reports gross fixed capital formation here at $119 billion last year – more than two-and-a-half times our headline FDI inflow – placing the country fifth in the world on real growth of domestic capital formation.
FDI tells us how the world chooses to invest in the UAE. Domestic investment tells us how those who live and build here choose to invest in our shared future. The two are not competitors. They are companions – each making the other more credible.
Many of the world’s most dynamic economies already encompass this dual measurement. Malaysia’s investment authority publishes domestic and foreign investment side by side; their prime minister has called domestic investment “a metric of confidence in government policy”. Indonesia reports its equivalent quarterly. Thailand and the Philippines do the same. The US makes domestic investment a core component of every GDP release. Each has decided that home-grown commitment is worth seeing – and celebrating.
Elevating this second story to the same prominence as our own FDI narrative would make the invisible visible: the depth of conviction in this economy from those who know it best; where home-based industry is leading – in advanced manufacturing, in food systems, in health care, in artificial intelligence – and the partnership between domestic and international capital that creates something more than either could build alone. It would also complement our outward story; the UAE’s considerable sovereign and private investments abroad project our influence and secure strategic assets in markets that matter. A confident country invests boldly at home and around the world.
The data is already there. Our statistical authorities track domestic capital formation with international rigour, reported through the UN system of national accounts. What this calls for is not necessarily new measurement, but new prominence – turning a technical line item into a national headline that captures investor imagination at home and abroad. And every dirham of that capital is invested in partnership with one of our deepest national assets: a young, globally fluent workforce whose energy and creativity turn capital into growth.
There is wisdom in this that goes beyond economics. The UAE's Founding Father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, once said: “A nation without a past is a nation without a present or a future.” What built the UAE was the conviction of those who chose to invest in it themselves – by birth or by choice. Honouring that conviction by telling its story is one way to ensure it compounds, generation after generation.
What gets measured, gets celebrated. What gets celebrated, gets multiplied.
Make it in the Emirates is more than the name of an exhibition. It is an invitation to everyone who builds right here, in the UAE.
We are not just making it in the Emirates. We are making the Emirates – stronger, deeper, enduring.
