Dubai non-oil exports soar 20%

04/01/2011 00:00 AST

Dubai's non-oil exports have achieved a 20 per cent growth in 2010, compared to previous year, a top government official said.

"It [exports] is more than 2009 and growth is around 19-20 per cent in full year," Engineer Saed Al Awadi, Chief Executive Officer of the Dubai Export Development Corporation (EDC), told Khaleej Times on Monday.

EDC is an agency of Dubai Department of Economic Development. "We have finalised the data and it will be ready by the end of this week," Al Awadi said.

Last month during an exporters' forum, Al Awadi said the UAE is striving to become one of the leading exporting countries in the world. Non-oil exports' growth will continue to record rising trend in 2011, he added.

Dubai accounts for about 80 per cent of the UAE's total non-oil trade. The emirate's non-oil trade indicators have shown positive results over the period from January to September 2010, and that meant a continuous economic recovery and improvement.

Dubai's direct non-oil trade hit a new record in the third quarter of 2010 amounting to Dh425 billion. This represents an increase of 19 per cent compared to the same period in 2009, which generated Dh358 billion.

The statistics showed that the non-oil exports value exceeded Dh50 billion by the end of the third quarter this year, which means an increase of 38 per cent compared to the same period last year that recorded Dh36.5 billion of exports.

Re-export activity has also shown significant growth during the during the first nine months with a value of Dh106 billion, representing an increase of 22 per cent compared to the same period last year that generated Dh87 billion.

The emirate's key export destinations in 2010 were India, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran. The emirate's bulk of non-oil exports is made up of re-exports. On the other hand, trade carried out through free zones in Dubai grew to 22 per cent during the nine months of last year with an estimated value of Dh234 billion, compared to Dh192 billion in previous year.According to the data from the UAE Federal Customs Authority, non-oil foreign trade in the country rose 11 per cent year-on-year in the first nine months.

The non-oil foreign trade rose to Dh540.5 billion ($147.2 billion) from January to September from Dh486.4 billion in the same period a year ago, according to the data.

Khaleej Times