Turkey and the UAE sign a comprehensive economic partnership agreement to boost trade
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said today, Friday, that Turkey and the UAE have signed a comprehensive economic partnership agreement to boost trade.
He added, during a speech in Istanbul, that the agreement will take economic and trade relations to a new stage, and that he believes it will enable an increase in the volume of trade between the two countries during the next five years.
Bloomberg reported that the United Arab Emirates and Turkey signed an agreement that the Gulf state said could more than double the volume of bilateral trade to between $40 billion and $45 billion within the next five years.
The comprehensive deal, whose brief was announced last year, was completed in Abu Dhabi today, Friday, during the visit of Turkish Trade Minister Mehmet Moss.
The Minister of State for Foreign Trade in the United Arab Emirates, Thani Al-Zeyoudi, told Bloomberg that the agreement includes reducing 82% of customs duties between the two countries.
The announcement of the new agreement comes as a culmination of long discussions between the two countries, which included the signing of a cooperation agreement in defense industries, and a series of economic agreements signed in 2022, after Erdogan’s visit to the UAE.
The recent agreements represented a development in the treatment of relations between two traditional rivals, who clashed fiercely over a number of issues, including dealing with political Islamic groups, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, and also the war in Libya since 2011.
Al-Zeyoudi said the trade agreement focuses on sectors including agricultural technology, clean energy, logistics and construction, among others.
Moss’s visit is the first by a senior Turkish official since the devastating earthquake that struck parts of Turkey and Syria in February. No Emirati aid to Turkey was mentioned when the agreement was signed.
Turkey’s economy grew by 5.6% last year, beating expectations, as the government boosted its spending ahead of the elections. But the earthquakes caused losses estimated by the World Bank at more than $34 billion.
In addition to entering into a $4.9 billion currency swap agreement with Turkey last year, the UAE has pledged billions of dollars in investments in Turkey, through government entities.
Al-Zeyoudi said that bilateral trade between the two countries will reach nearly $19 billion in 2022.
The UAE, OPEC’s third-largest oil producer, is increasingly pressing to develop its position as a global business and finance hub, especially in the face of growing regional competition from neighboring Saudi Arabia.
The UAE has entered into comprehensive economic partnership agreements with many fast-growing economies around the world, including India, Indonesia and Israel.
(Archyde.com, The New Arab)