UAE President visits India for trade, energy and diplomacy

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed began a visit on Monday to India, where he was due to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This marks the UAE President’s third visit, and comes after trade between the UAE and India surged to $100 billion in 2024‑25 following implementation of a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.

The visit also comes as state-owned Etihad Water & Electricity said it is planning a feasibility study for a proposed undersea power link.

The “One Sun, One World, One grid” initiative would allow solar power to be traded between the countries. The UAE is home to more than 3.5 million Indians, its largest expatriate community.

Microsoft, G42 to expand capacity of joint data centers in UAE

Microsoft President Brad Smith was in Dubai with G42 CEO Peng Xiao on Thursday to roll out plans for expanding the capacity of their joint data centers in the UAE by an additional 200 megawatts.

Completion for upscaling G42’s Khazna Data Centers is targeted for the end of 2026 and the project follows Microsoft’s $1.5 billion investment in G42 earlier this year.

“We can leverage the resources of the UAE to help other nations,” Peng said.

Smith said the UAE’s geographic location bridges Asia and Europe and could enable the Microsoft-G42 partnership to serve 4 billion people.

UAE expects $10B a year in trade with Angola under new pact

The UAE is going deep into Angola.

On a state visit to the southern African nation, which holds substantial supplies of diamonds, copper and oil, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed sat beside Angolan President João Lourenço to witness the signing on Monday of a free-trade deal between the two countries.

Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi, the UAE’s Minister of Foreign Trade, said the Comprehensive Partnership Trade Agreement and other accords signed during the trip would generate bilateral returns reaching $10 billion a year by 2033.

Among the areas for cooperation covered in the deal are artificial intelligence, banking, agriculture, tourism and energy.

MBZ meets Putin amid tensions between Moscow and Washington

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed arrived in Moscow on Thursday and went directly to the Kremlin to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Emirati leader was greeted by an honor guard at Vnukovo Airport after his plane was escorted by military aircraft once it entered Russian airspace.

Inside the Kremlin, the UAE President, often referred to as MBZ, walked down a long hall past Russian cabinet ministers, military commanders and government officials. He clasped hands with Putin before the two leaders began a series of diplomatic meetings.

The MBZ trip to Russia follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to the Gulf in May and comes amid rising tensions between Moscow and Washington. The UAE pledged to invest $1.4 trillion in the U.S. economy over the next decade, focusing on defense contracts and artificial intelligence.

According to the Emirates News Agency, the Russian and Emirati leaders planned to discuss “various aspects of the strategic partnership between the two countries and ways to enhance cooperation, particularly in the economic, trade, investment, energy, and other areas that serve joint development, in addition to regional and international issues of common interest.”

Accompanying the UAE President was a delegation that included Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohamed bin Zayed, Deputy Chairman of the Presidential Court for Special Affairs; Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Tahnoon, Advisor to the UAE President; and Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and CEO of the ADNOC national oil company.

Also traveling to Moscow were Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Foreign Trade; Mohamed Hassan Al Suwaidi, Minister of Investment; and Ali Al Shamsi, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council for National Security.

UAE President travels Eastern Europe, meets Hungary’s Orbán

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed traveled through Eastern Europe and Turkey this week, visiting Hungary where he strolled through Parliament with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

The stop in Budapest on Thursday followed visits to Serbia and Albania, where Sheikh Mohamed led a delegation of cabinet ministers and senior UAE executives who explored business opportunities in the region.

Also traveling with the UAE President were Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohamed, Deputy Chairman of the Presidential Court for Special Affairs; Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, and CEO of ADNOC; Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Foreign Trade; and Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Chairman of the Executive Affairs Authority and CEO of Mubadala.

Prominent in the entourage in Serbia was Mohamed Alabbar, chief of Dubai-based Emaar and Eagle Hills Properties, who has been active for years in the capital of Belgrade and other Eastern European cities.

Most recently, Alabbar has teamed up with Jared Kushner, founder of Miami-based Affinity Partners and son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump, to build a Trump Tower hotel in Belgrade on the site of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense.

In Hungary, government officials from the two countries signed 14 draft agreements in fields ranging from energy, agriculture, food production, defense and telecommunications. Budapest-based 4iG Space and Defense Technologies also signed three preliminary deals with Abu Dhabi’s defense conglomerate EDGE Group.

The Hungarian company also agreed to explore joint investment opportunities with Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala and work with UAE telecom e& on submarine cables and data centers, Hungary Today reports.

Trump, Mubadala’s Khaldoon Al Mubarak to attend U.S. summit

U.S. President Donald Trump will address an energy conference in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Tuesday that is expected to draw some of the world’s most influential investors and oil company executives.

Among those scheduled to attend the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, hosted by Republican Senator Dave McCormick, are Khaldoon Al Mubarak, CEO of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala sovereign wealth fund, Blackstone President and COO Jon Gray, BlackRock’s Larry Fink and Bridgewater’s Nir Bar Dea, Axios reports.

Also expected at the forum are Dina Powell McCormick, the senator’s wife who was Deputy National Security Advisor to Trump in his first term and is now Vice Chairman and President of Global Client Services at BDT & MSD Partners, a merchant bank based in Chicago and New York.

Trump and McCormick will use the summit, which is taking place at Carnegie Mellon University, to announce $70 billion in AI and energy investments for the state of Pennsylvania, including thousands of new jobs, according to Axios. Gray will announce a $25 billion investment by Blackstone in data-center and energy infrastructure development in Northeast Pennsylvania, along with a joint venture for increased power generation, the news site said.

Others scheduled to attend are ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, Chevron’s Mike Wirth, Alphabet/Google’s Ruth Porat, Palentir’s Alex Karp and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei.

From Trump’s cabinet, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Energy Secretary Chris Wright will attend the forum.

Emirates’ Clark warns Trump tariffs threaten aviation industry

Emirates President Sir Tim Clark, who has run the Middle East’s biggest airline for two decades, says the UAE carrier can handle the costs of new U.S. tariffs.

Still, Clark told CNBC in an interview that the Trump administration’s “trade reset” could disrupt global commerce, with China’s tariffs on U.S. aerospace firms potentially raising costs for Emirates’ wide-body fleet.

“Business models like Emirates, given the international scope of what it does, the strength of what it does, will be able to ride this particular wave,” he said.

Clark said the aviation industry, however, remains in “uncharted territory” as U.S. tariffs are expected to drive up airline costs. “Right now, we are in troubled times,” he said.

UAE to invest $40 billion in Italy following MBZ’s state visit

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed’s state visit to meet Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome produced a range of deals aimed at strengthening both business and security ties between the two countries.

Emirati officials signed deals on Monday to invest $40 billion in Italy across projects ranging from artificial intelligence to undersea cables and renewable energy.

“This collaboration underscores the importance of Italy and the UAE as strategic partners for innovation, sustainable economic development and technological exchange,” the countries said in a joint statement.

Sheikh Mohamed’s trip was the first by a UAE President to Italy. Meloni visited Abu Dhabi in January.

UAE and Ukraine sign free-trade deal amid efforts to end war

The UAE signed a free-trade agreement with Ukraine amidst a joint U.S.-Saudi effort to bring Russia’s three-year war in the country to a close.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed witnessed the signing of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement on Monday at the Qasr Al Shati palace in Abu Dhabi.

Under the terms of the pact, 99% of Ukrainian imports from the UAE and 97% of Ukrainian exports to the UAE will be exempt from customs duties.

The CEPA is aimed at accelerating Ukraine’s economic recovery from the war while creating new opportunities for trade with the UAE in fields including aviation, information technology, infrastructure and heavy industry.

UAE President meets with Putin weeks after White House visit

Having visited U.S. President Joe Biden earlier in the month at the White House, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed is continuing his international travels with a stop in Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted the Emirati leader for dinner on Sunday, with an official meeting set for today that will focus both on commercial relations, as well as the conflicts with Ukraine and in the Middle East, according to a Kremlin statement.

Trade between the two countries has tripled to $7 billion over the last three years, even as Russia has been subject to sanctions applied by the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union.

Putin personally thanked the UAE President for mediating a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine, the statement said.

Following the Moscow visit, Sheikh Mohammed will travel on Tuesday to the Russian city of Kazan for a summit of the BRICS group of nations, which it joined in January.