This is a message to the world on how countries can act together to fight the climate crisis," said Israel's Energy Minister Karine Elharrar. "All residents of the Middle East will benefit from this memorandum of understanding, not just Jordan and Israel. The UAE, which became the first Gulf state to normalise relations with Israel last year, said it was pleased to play a role in bringing the two countries together in demonstrating the benefits of establishing diplomatic relations. The deal was signed by the UAE's climate change minister, Jordan's minister of water and irrigation and Israel's energy minister at the Expo 2020 world fair currently being hosted by Dubai. "It takes some time for trade links to be established and the pandemic almost certainly complicated this," Jan Friederich, Senior Director at Fitch Ratings said.It has not been decided over how long the agreement would be carried out.
Publicly announced deals include around 40 memorandums of understanding and around 30 other types of strategic, cooperation or distribution agreements related to the financial, energy, sports, agriculture, aviation, aerospace and media sectors as well as investment promotion and COVID-19 technology.īut a $3 billion fund announced by the U.S., Israel and the UAE to encourage private-sector investment and regional cooperation has gone quiet, as has a $10 billion fund of UAE private and state money announced in March to invest in Israeli strategic sectors. To date, 10 government-to-government agreements have been signed between the two countries including double taxation, visas, financial services and money laundering agreements.
#DUBAI ARABIC UNDERSTAND JORDAN FREE#
Israel has said it plans to open an economic attache office in Abu Dhabi this summer, and the UAE and Israel have been discussing a Free Trade Agreement. "We need to really get down to work on institutional relationships between our financial institutions, the banks, the funds, the big business," Na'eh told Reuters.Ībdulla Baqer of the UAE-Israel Business Council expects major deals on logistics, medicine and start-up incubation this year.
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The outgoing head of mission at the Israeli embassy in the UAE, Eitan Na'eh, said quite a few agreements were to be signed in coming months, with a series of ministers visiting Dubai Expo 2020, the world fair opening in October after a one-year pandemic delay. We've seen much more interest from business people," he said. "A lot of the business community in those countries have seen that, no, it's okay to do business in Israel. Lavie said the UAE pact was encouraging trade with Egypt and Jordan, with which Israel has had peace deals for decades.
Israel has traditionally exported to Arab countries via other states, or through complex structures outside the region. "We're becoming much more regional," he said. Zeev Lavie of the Israeli Chambers of Commerce (FICC) said normalisation had expanded Israeli trade within the wider Middle East via the UAE. Israel recorded $457 million of imports from the UAE between January 2020 and June this year, and $255 million in exports to the UAE, its Central Bureau of Statistics said.ĭubai, which contains the region's largest transhipment port at Jebel Ali, said in January that bilateral trade since September 2020 stood at $272 million.
The bulk of trade between the UAE and Israel, which have similar GDPs of around $400 billion, has involved imports from the Gulf's dominant logistics and re-export hub, including plastics, electronics, auto parts and gems. In September, the UAE and Bahrain both inked U.S.-brokered deals to establish ties with Israel, followed by Sudan and Morocco. The UAE, which in a seismic move last August became the first Gulf state to normalise ties with Israel, promoted the accord's economic benefits.