UAE, Australia Launch Historic Trade Partnership Talks

According to WAM, it is the first time that the United Arab Emirates and Australia have claimed that they have launched negotiations on the CEPA. The historic deal is Australia’s first trade deal with a country in the Middle East, North Africa (MENA) region. The announcement has been made at a time when two-way non-oil trade between the two countries stood at $4.5 billion in 2022, up by 28% compared to 2021 and double the 2020 figure.

The UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade, Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, said that Australia is a service-based economy and has trade liberalization agreements with many countries in the world through Free Trade Agreements. The planned undertaking is predicted to at one time and sequentially generate new enterprise opportunities in the logistics, food, tourism, renewable power sources, and mining industries. In addition, both countries can expect favorable changes in market access to the key markets in the framework of this partnership.

At present, more than 300 Australian companies are invested in the UAE covering construction and trade, personal and financial, agronomy supplies, and training services. CEPA is expected to expand on specific niches in the healthy market terrain in UAE in addition to promote inter-sector investment in the growth sectors the likes of property, healthcare, IT and distribution products.

The UAE government launched the Comprehensive Economic Partnerships Programme in September 2021, and has so far been promising through winning partnerships with large economies in the world such as India, Indonesia, and Turkey among others. Targets to enhance non-oil trade value to double by 2031 to become AED 4 trillion. The growth is seen, as, in fact, to the average, the first half of 2023 has touched the overall worth of over $337 billion, which is 14.4% higher than it has been for the same period of 2023.

Also Read: https://theworldreviews.com/uae-russia-partnership-under-sheikh-mohamed-bin-zayed/

The minister of Trade and Tourism of Australia, Don Farrell, said that he expects much from the agreement, as it will help to develop relations between Australia and one of the main partners in the sphere of trade and investments in the Middle East area. It will thus provide the basis for forging a still better economic relationship between the two countries.