Media ININ Economy We Trust
Media IN ABU DHABI, 20th July, 2019 (WAM)
Bilateral trade between China and the UAE reached US$11.2 billion in the first quarter of 2019, a 16.21 percent increase compared to the same period in 2018, said Ni Jian, the Chinese Ambassador to the UAE.
“China-UAE trade is expected to maintain the momentum of rapid growth throughout 2019 and beyond,”.
He also said that in the first five months of 2019, the bilateral trade amounted to US$19 billion, up by 11.37 percent, compared to the same period last year, he said.
In 2018, China’s exports to the UAE grew by 3.2 percent to US$29.66 billion and China’s imports from the UAE went up by 32.8 percent to US$16.26 billion, he said, pointing out at the same time that “as China and the UAE use different methods for bilateral trade, the figures from both sides may differ.”
China’s investments over the years in the UAE reached US$9.1 billion in 2017. Chinese Foreign Direct Investment, FDI, in the UAE was worth US$620 million in 2017 alone, the ambassador said.
The US$410 billion China-UAE Joint Investment Fund is operating smoothly, which highlights the practical cooperation between both countries, he said.
Chinese engineering contracting companies signed new project contracts worth US$7.64 billion in the UAE in 2018, up by 53 percent compared to the previous year, the envoy revealed.
Those companies made revenues to the tune of US$3.61 billion in 2018, a 44.8 percent increase compared to 2017, he said.
There are between 4,000 to 6,000 Chinese companies operating in the UAE, mostly based in Dubai, he said.
According to Dubai Department of Economic Development, 618 new business licences were issued to Chinese companies in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 22.8 percent, the ambassador pointed out.
By the end of 2018, there were altogether 5,977 effective business licences for Chinese companies registered in Dubai. About 4,811 of them were limited liability companies, and 4,628 were in the commercial and trade sector, he explained.
