DUBAI: The foreign direct investments (FDIs) in UAE capital Abu Dhabi grew eight percent, year on year, equalling $25.92 billion compared with $24.24 billion in 2015, UAE state news agency WAM reported on Saturday. The WAM report quoted new figures issued by the Statistics Centre Abu Dhabi (SCAD) for 2016. The results indicated that 20.2 percent FDIs have gone to manufacturing industries, with a growth rate of 11.2 percent compared to 2015 when manufacturing industries received 19.5 percent of FDIs. The share of FDIs into the property market, on the other hand, has declined. Investments in real estate activities, including ‘real estate sales to non-residents’, has taken 25.2 percent of FDIs to 27 percent of the total FDIs, or 23.793 billion dirham in 2015, according to the SCAD figures. According to global property consultancy JLL, 2016 saw a ‘general softening’ of real estate prices in Abu Dhabi as the low oil prices weighed on the economy. The estimates have shown an increase in FDIs in financial and insurance activities, from $3.64 billion in 2015 to $4 billion in 2016, with a growth rate of 10 percent in 2016. Abu Dhabi hosts the UAE’s new financial free zone, the Abu Dhabi Global Market which started operations in late 2015 and welcomed the first foreign banks last year, among them Aberdeen Asset Management from the United Kingdom and Australia’s Macquarie Capital. SCAD’s report noted that the share of the extracting industries, including crude oil and natural gas, in FDIs has grown by 11 percent in 2016. Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Acting Undersecretary Khalifa bin Salem Al-Mansouri said, “the results of SCAD’s annual report reflects the efforts exerted by relevant local government bodies in managing and implementing FDIs-related policies and incentives. Under the government’s strategic plan ‘Abu Dhabi 2030’ the UAE capital emirate aims to reduce its dependency from hydro-carbon exports by diversifying the economy.