A year ago last Wednesday, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and the U.S. formally signed normalization agreements at the White House. Zev Stub discusses the trade that has flourished since then:
According to data published by [Israel’s] Central Bureau of Statistics, trade in goods between Israel and the United Arab Emirates reached about $610 million from January to July 2021. Israel exported $210 million and imported $400 million, with diamonds comprising about half of all trade. Those numbers don’t include high-tech-services exports, which comprise a significant share of bilateral trade, the Israel Export Institute noted.
Both sides are very optimistic about future trade growth, with hopes of exceeding $1 billion this year and reaching $3 billion within three years, trade organizations say. That means that if year one was filled with lots of talk about peace, relationships, and potential, the coming years will yield significant returns.
Israeli businesses are starting to see the UAE not just as a new market, but as a hub where they can access markets in South Asia, East Africa, India, and Bangladesh for the first time. “These are markets with billions of people, and you can’t work with them from Tel Aviv,” says Dorian Barak, co-founder of the UAE-Israel Business Council. “The UAE is the place where everyone congregates to do business, and Israel has finally been admitted to that club.”
On Monday, Abu Dhabi’s economy minister announced that he hoped for $1 trillion in trade with the Jewish state over the next ten years.
Read more on Jerusalem Post: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/a-year-into-abraham-accords-business-activity-is-picking-up-679432