The non-oil direct trade of the UAE increased by 3 per cent to Dh17.7 billion in the first half of the current year, reaching Dh553.4 billion, well above the Dh535.7 billion achieved during the same period last year.
Asia, Australia, and the Pacific regions retained top trading partners with a share of Dh211.3 billion accounting for 39 per cent of the total non-oil trade. Europe ranked second, with a share of Dh139.9 billion (26 per cent), and the Middle East and North Africa region came next with a share of Dh92.9 billion (17 per cent ).
America and the Caribbean with a share of Dh55.1 billion (10 per cent), while East and South Africa came last with a share of Dh16.8 billion (3 per cent), 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 Dh18.4 billion, representing 36 per cent of the UAE non-oil trade with GCC countries. Oman came next with a share of Dh14.2 billion (27 per cent), Qatar with a share of Dh7.6 billion (15 per cent), Kuwait with a share of Dh6.1 billion (12 per cent), and Bahrain with a share of Dh5.3 billion (10 per cent) 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 per cent which accounts for Dh55.6 billion of total imports. Unmounted diamond came second with a share of Dh24 billion (7 per cent), then came car imports with a share of Dh21.8 billion (6 per cent), telephone handsets with Dh17.3 billion (5 per cent), and precious stones jewellery with a share of Dh13.7 billion (4 per cent) of total imports.
The UAE non-oil exports data also showed that raw gold and golden works ranked first with a share of Dh28.1 billion accounting for 13 per cent of the total exports, raw aluminium came next with a share of Dh11.2 billion (13 per cent), then precious stones jewellery Dh9.5 billion (11 per cent), polymers of ethylene in primary forms with a share of Dh6.8 billion (8 per cent), and publications with a share of Dh2.3 billion (3 per cent) 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 Dh25.1 billion (22 per cent of re-exports). With a share of Dh15.9 billion (14 per cent), precious stone jewellery ranked second. Next came cars with a share of Dh9.3 billion (8 per cent), telephone handsets with a share of Dh8 billion (7 per cent), and aircraft parts with a share of Dh3 billion (3 per cent) of total re-exports.
Direct non-oil trade with GCC countries throughout the first half of 2016 accounted for 9 per cent of the UAE’s total world trade, according to the FCA. The trade value with the GCC countries during that period amounted to Dh51.6 billion.
The FCA data showed that the total UAE non-oil trade with Arab countries during the first half of 2016 accounted for 17 per cent of the UAE non-oil world trade, with an estimated value of Dh95 billion. The UAE imports from Arab countries reached Dh35.4 billion, while re-exports were Dh13.3 billion worth.