UAE, European Union see progress in clinching trade deal
The UAE and the European Union are moving closer to a trade agreement that would give the emirates consolidated access to the world’s largest trading bloc while reinforcing the country’s own status as a global logistics hub.
A deal between the UAE and the EU could also be key to unlocking a wider agreement between the 27-member bloc and the Gulf Cooperation Council, a stop-start negotiation which has not yielded consensus in the 35 years since talks started.
Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade, met with the EU’s trade chief Maros Sefcovic in Dubai on Wednesday to launch the talks officially over a potential Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, the UAE’s framework for the dozens of trade deals it has made since 2021 to diversify its economy.
During his visit to the emirate, Sefcovic also met with the private sector to discuss opportunities for increased investment flows. The EU currently accounts for $67.6 billion in non-oil trade with the Emirates, 8.3% of the UAE’s total trade.
Speaking to reporters alongside Sefcovic, Al Zeyoudi said the UAE wants to seal a deal with the EU “in a very short period, three to six months from now.”
The Emirati cabinet minister added he did not see the talks as a hurdle for a future EU deal with the GCC and noted that bilateral talks with New Zealand and South Korea had led to trade agreements with the GCC, Reuters reports.
“We are seeing it’s a flow which is going to be starting from here and moving to the GCC,” he said. “Usually, the blocs are much slower than the bilateral, and that’s why we’re starting here, so we can move quickly.”
UAE minister woos Silicon Valley investment firms on U.S. tour
From meeting U.S. policymakers face-to-face in Washington to chatting with OpenAI execs in San Francisco, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade and Talent Attraction Thani Al Zeyoudi says his cross-country tour last week should pay dividends in relationship-building abroad.
Along with a raft of discussions about artificial intelligence “as the defining technology of our era,” Al Zeyoudi’s Silicon Valley sojourn put him in direct contact with a wide gamut of Silicon Valley investment firms, he said on Tuesday in a LinkedIn post.
Those included TPG, Thoma Bravo, Viking Global Investors, Lux Capital, Khosla Ventures, Brave Capital, Audere Capital, Flagship Capital Management, General Catalyst and Mubadala Ventures – which the minister called “sources of capital formation being directed to bleeding-edge technologies shaping the world today.”
He said companies including Flexport, Interos, Lightmatter and Lila Sciences were “keen to explore partnerships with the UAE.”
Reflecting on the SelectUSA Investment Summit in suburban Washington D.C., where he was a keynote speaker, Al Zeyoudi noted his meetings with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy as especially useful in kindling American-Emirati collaboration.
“While we shared non-oil trade of $40 billion in 2023, I believe our nations have only touched the surface of bilateral opportunity,” Al Zeyoudi said. “Sectors such as renewable energy, sustainability, biotechnology, life sciences, finance, and logistics are all ripe for further development.”
Abu Dhabi’s AI-focused energy company AIQ, meanwhile, announced a partnership agreement on Monday with Texas-based Halliburton’s Landmark unit to help expand the use of AI tools in oil and gas production.
