Dubai: The United Arab Emirates aims to increase the value of economic activities with Israel to more than $ 1 trillion in the next 10 years, hoping to work together in all things ranging from health care to climate and energy change, UAE’s economic minister said.
The Middle Eastern trade and business hub has signed dozens of memorandum of understanding with his new allies in the year to become the first Arab country to normalize bonds with Israel this century.
Not immediately clear how the two countries hope to achieve a goal of $ 1 trillion in economic activities in the next decade.
Each country has gross domestic product of around $ 400 billion.
UAE and Israel have between $ 600 million and $ 700 million in bilateral trade, ministers, Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, told virtual conferences on Monday.
Reaching that level in one year is “an achievement by itself,” he said, added that he expects more trade “.
“We are looking to create more than $ 1 trillion dollars in economic activities over the next decade,” he said, adding them “moved to so many areas of economic opportunities.” The Israeli government said it expects $ 1 billion in trade with the UAE at the end of 2021 and $ 3 billion in three years, still far below the $ 24 billion of UAE exports in 2019 to the top destination, Saudi Arabia.
In September last year, UAE and Bahrain, followed by Sudan and Morocco, both signed a transaction calculated by U.S to build relationships with Israel, joining Egypt and Jordan as the only Arab countries to recognize the Jewish state.
The publicly announced agreement includes around 40 mous and about 30 other types of agreements related to the financial, energy, sports, agriculture, aviation, aerospace and media sectors and investment promotion and Covid-19 technology.
But $ 3 billion in funds announced by the United States, Israel and the UAE to encourage private sector investment and regional cooperation has been silent, because it has $ 10 billion in personal UAE and state money announced in March to invest in Israel’s strategic sectors .