UAE non-oil trade increased by 3%, to reach AED553.4 bn in first half of 2016

WAM -- The non-oil direct trade of the UAE increased by 3 percent to AED17.7 billion in the first half of the current year, reaching AED553.4 billion, well above the AED535.7 billion achieved during the same period last year.

Asia, Australia, and the Pacific regions retained top trading partners with a share of AED211.3 billion accounting for 39 percent of the total non-oil trade. Europe ranked second, with a share of AED139.9 billion (26 percent), and the Middle East and North Africa region came next with a share of AED92.9 billion (17 percent ).

America and the Caribbean with a share of AED55.1 billion (10 percent), while East and South Africa came last with a share of AED16.8 billion (3 percent), according to the latest figures of the Federal Customs Authority, FCA.

Saudi Arabia was the UAE top GCC non-oil trade partner with a share of AED18.4 billion, representing 36 percent of the UAE non-oil trade with GCC countries. Oman came next with a share of AED14.2 billion (27 percent), Qatar with a share of AED7.6 billion (15 percent), Kuwait with a share of AED6.1 billion (12 percent), and Bahrain with a share of AED5.3 billion (10 percent) of the UAE-GCC non-oil trade.

The UAE continues to reinforce its outstanding ranking on world trade map, and boost its role in facilitating trade exchange among countries during the first half of 2016. This is driven by the increasing activity rates in all economic sectors along with the advance of the state’s competitiveness on many global indicators, Commissioner Ali Al Kaabi, FCA Chairman, said.

He added that the rates of trade exchange between the UAE and countries around the world grew during the first half of the current year despite global slowdown and the declining prospects for global trade growth; which underlines the effectiveness of the economic diversification policy adopted by the prudent leadership to diversify the sources of income and production, it also highlights the high competitiveness of the national products.

He also confirmed the keenness of the UAE to facilitate global trade and remove tariff and non-tariff barriers impeding trade with countries of the world.

The UAE’s total direct non-oil foreign trade, in terms of weight, hit nearly 98.6 million tonnes during the first half of 2016, of which imports accounted for 38.8 million tonnes, exports 55.3 million tonnes, and re-exports 4.5 million tonnes.

The statistics show that raw gold and golden works ranked top in imported goods with a share of 16 percent which accounts for AED55.6 billion of total imports. Unmounted diamond came second with a share of AED24 billion (7 percent), then came car imports with a share of AED21.8 billion (6 percent), telephone handsets with AED17.3 billion (5 percent), and precious stones jewellery with a share of AED13.7 billion (4 percent) of total imports.

The UAE non-oil exports data also showed that raw gold and golden works ranked first with a share of AED28.1 billion accounting for 13 percent of the total exports, raw aluminium came next with a share of AED11.2 billion (13 percent), then precious stones jewellery AED9.5 billion (11 percent), polymers of ethylene in primary forms with a share of AED6.8 billion (8 percent), and publications with a share of AED2.3 billion (3 percent) of UAE total non-oil exports during the first half of 2016.

Unmounted diamonds ranked top among re-exports in the first half of 2016 with a share of AED25.1 billion (22 percent of re-exports). With a share of AED15.9 billion (14 percent), precious stone jewellery ranked second. Next came cars with a share of AED9.3 billion (8 percent), telephone handsets with a share of AED8 billion (7 percent), and aircraft parts with a share of AED3 billion (3 percent) of total re-exports.

Direct non-oil trade with GCC countries throughout the first half of 2016 accounted for 9 percent of the UAE’s total world trade, according to the FCA. The trade value with the GCC countries during that period amounted to AED51.6 billion.

The FCA data showed that the total UAE non-oil trade with Arab countries during the first half of 2016 accounted for 17 percent of the UAE non-oil world trade, with an estimated value of AED95 billion. The UAE imports from Arab countries reached AED35.4 billion, while re-exports were AED13.3 billion worth.

 WAM/AAMIR