UAE, US trade relations flourishing

21/09/2014 01:00 AST

Economic, trade and investment relations between UAE and the US are steadily flourishing and are poised for further growth and development as the two countries have a common will for bolstering them, and as several opportunities and avenues that are still untapped would deepen their cooperation relations, affirmed Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of UAE Economy, who is leading a large high-profile UAE business delegation to the US for meetings with senior officials.

“There are many diverse opportunities and avenues for bolstering cooperation between the two countries, especially as the US economy is the world’s largest and the UAE economy is the largest in the Arab region. This allows for further development of the bilateral economic, trade and investment relations in the service of the interests of the two friendly countries and their peoples,” said Mansouri in a statement.

The current US visit is important as it will provide mutual investments and enhance trade cooperation between the two countries at the government and private levels.

The UAE delegation’s US tour announced earlier this year will include visits to Washington DC, Seattle, Palo Alto, Silicon Valley and Los Angeles.

The UAE economy minister said that the ministry, in line with the keen vision of the UAE leadership, seeks to increase the contribution of knowledge-based economy to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to 5 per cent by 2021.

“Based on this, we give high priority to innovation and the nurturing of ideas that would develop our different economic sectors, improve our competitiveness at the international level.

Therefore, we will try to make the most of our (current) tour in a country that has the world’s biggest global corporations and the strongest innovation and technology organisations, and view the different experiences and leading instances in those spheres.” According to the Ministry of Economy, the UAE’s foreign trade grew 12.6 per cent in the past three years to reach more than $290 billion (one trillion and 64 billion dirhams) by the end of 2013, with non-oil trade between UAE and the US reaching more than $26.9 billion (Dhs98.7 billion).

WAM