RABAT, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Morocco attracted nearly 2.57 billion U.S. dollars 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 dollars after reaching 3.2 billion dollars 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 dollars, Tunisia, 958 million dollars, and Libya, 493 million dollars, UNCTAD statistics show.

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