Dubai, UAE—China-UAE bilateral trade has exceeded US$64 billion during the first eight months of 2022, which marked a 27.93 percent increase compared to the same period last year, according to a top Chinese diplomat.
“China has become the UAE’s largest non-oil trading partner in the world, and the UAE remained China’s second-largest trading partner and the largest export market in the Arab region,” Zhang Yiming, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China, told WAM.
He said that in recent years, China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ is highly consistent with UAE’s ‘Projects of the 50’, and the cooperation between the two sides “is getting increasingly strategic, pioneering, and innovative”.
China-GCC FTA negotiations in final stage
The China-GCC Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations have entered the final and critical stage, as the two sides have agreed on most issues and are putting the final touches on the agreement, the ambassador said.
The China-Arab Summit, which will be held in Saudi Arabia in December this year, will be an important milestone in the history of China-Arab relations, he said.
This will be the first such summit and the first face-to-face exchanges between Chinese and Arab leaders since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The friendship between China and Arab countries goes back to ancient times. The two sides are good brothers, good friends, and good partners,” he told WAM.
UAE a gateway for Chinese enterprises to ‘go global’
Underscoring the UAE’s role as a major hub of the Belt and Road Initiative and a regional aviation, transportation and financial centre, the envoy said it is an important gateway for Chinese enterprises to “go global” and a popular destination for Chinese tourists.
China-UAE S&T cooperation attracts global attention
The cooperation between China and the UAE in science and technology has drawn close attention of the international community, Yiming noted.
“The two countries made a series of ‘firsts’ in the world: they jointly conducted the world’s first phase-3 clinical trial of COVID-19 inactivated vaccine, initiated the first COVID-19 vaccine production line, built a Hayat-Vax vaccine production plant with an annual production capacity of 200 million doses, and approved a second-generation recombinant protein COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use,” he said.
Cooperation in aviation, tourism
The air connectivity and tourist traffic between both countries are growing after the pandemic, the ambassador said.
“At present, the number of direct flights between China and UAE has increased significantly, from one to two flights per week at the peak of the pandemic to 26 flights per week now, and the frequency will continue to increase,” he said.