CAIRO- The United Arab Emirates’ non-oil trade hit 1.058 trillion dirhams ($288.06 billion) in the first half of 2022, up 17 percent from a year earlier, the vice president said on Monday in a tweet.
The Gulf country’s non-oil trade half-year topped 1 trillion dirhams for the first time, said Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who is also the UAE’s prime minister and ruler of Dubai.
Non-oil exports in the first half reached roughly 180 billion dirhams, up 8 percent, and accounted for about 17 percent of non-oil trade.
Imports jumped 19 percent to nearly 580 billion dirhams, making up 55 percent of non-oil trade. Re-exports were up 20 percent to almost 300 billion dirhams and constituted 28 percent of non-oil trade.
“We were determined to remain open for business and, with big trade deals with India and others, we signaled that we wanted to be at the forefront of jump-starting a post-COVID economy,” UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade Thani Al Zeyoudi said in a statement.
The UAE signed free trade deals with India and Israel in the first half of this year, and another with Indonesia in July.
UAE is hoping the economy will grow by 5 percent to 6 percent this year as it recovers from the pandemic, and by the same pace over the next few years to help double the economy by 2031, its economy minister said earlier.
“The whole world is recovering and I think we are in a recovery phase after the pandemic, (but) predicting growth as well this year is a challenge,” Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri told Reuters on the sidelines of the “Investopia” conference in Dubai, referring to the Russia-Ukraine war and oil prices.
When asked if the economy will grow by 5 percent to 6 percent in 2022 as well, he said “that’s what I hope, we are very ambitious, very positive… We want to double our economy by 2031.”
The IMF expects the UAE economy to grow by 3 percent this year after it expanded by 2.1 percent in 2021.
The UAE’s non-oil economy has benefited from public spending, credit growth and improving business sentiment, and its hosting of the Dubai World EXPO has boosted tourism.
When asked about his view on Russians looking to invest in the UAE, he said the country will abide by international law when it comes to Russian investments.
“We are open to those who are not against the international law,” he said.
Wealthy Russians are pouring money into real estate in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, seeking a financial haven in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and Western sanctions, according to many property companies.
The United States and its allies have imposed several rounds of sanctions, including on the country’s largest lenders and President Vladimir Putin, since Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Feb 24 in the biggest assault on a European state since World War Two. — Reuters
