China and India replaced long- standing Western suppliers of goods to the United
Arab Emirates ( UAE) to become the dominant exporters to the Gulf nation,
accounting for nearly a quarter of its total imports last year, the Emirates
Business 24/7 website reported Wednesday.
India exported a record high
61.5 billion dirhams (about 16.7 billion dollars) worth of goods to the UAE in
2009, accounting for around 13.7 percent of the country's total imports, the
report said, citing figures by the National Bureau of Statistics of the Economy
Ministry.
The figures showed that China's exports to the UAE stood at 47.
8 billion dirhams (about 13 billion dollars) last year, constituting around 10.7
percent of the country's total imports of 447.3 billion dirhams (about 121.8
billion dollars).
Taken together, exports by India and China to the UAE
totaled around 109.3 billion dirhams (29.7 billion dollars) in 2009, accounting
for nearly 24.5 percent of the country's total imports, the report
said.
Both countries had been small exporters to the UAE compared with
such major industrial powers as Japan, the United States and the European Union
during the 1990s before they overtook them and became the top exporters to the
country, the second largest Arab economy and one of the top 20 global
importers.
The surge was a result of an aggressive marketing blitz by
India and China, the competitive price of their products, proximity to the
region, their strong political relationship, and persistent volatility in the
bill of imports from key Western economies because of the peg between Gulf
currencies and the U.S. dollar, the report said.
As for re-exports, the
figures showed that Iran remained the largest market for re-exported products
from the UAE, mostly from Dubai, with a value of around 25.9 billion dirhams
(about 7.05 billion dollars) in 2009, accounting for 17.6 percent of the UAE's
total non-oil re-exports of 147 billion dirhams (about 40.05 billion
dollars).
According to the Cairo-based Arab League, the UAE became the
largest trading hub in the region in 2009 after overtaking Saudi Arabia. Dubai,
the country's business capital, has also maintained its position as the Middle
East's transshipment center, handling over a fifth of the Gulf region's non-oil
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