Morocco attracted nearly $2.57 billion of foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2017, up 12 percent from a year earlier, the foreign exchange regulator said Tuesday.

In 2016, FDI in Morocco declined 29 percent to $2.3 billion after reaching $3.2 billion in 2015, according to the United Nations Conference for Trade and Investment (UNCTAD).

Still, Morocco overtook its neighboring Maghreb nations including Algeria with FDI of $1.5 billion, Tunisia, 958 million dollars, and Libya, $493 million, UNCTAD statistics show.

In addition, tourism revenues in Morocco increased 5.4 percent to $5.7 billion last year, while remittances from 4.5 million Moroccan expatriates rose 4.5 percent to nearly $7 billion.

(Xinhua News Agency, January 17, 2018)