DUBAI: East Asia is one of our biggest trading blocks. It’s around US$72 billion in 2015. That’s around 20 percent of the total trade of Dubai. But when you look carefully to that, what’s really important is the growth that we’ve been witnessing during the past four or five years. It’s growing more than 50 percent. Of course, China is two-thirds of that trade. But Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong are also big contributors to the trade relationship. When you zoom into China, China by itself is around US$48 billion worth of trade. It has shown a great phenomenon of growth for us during the past five years. It grew from US$24 billion in 2010 to $48 billion. That’s 100 percent growth.
We hope to be able, through the initiatives that we are doing, to continue this growth even further. To be able to cater for the demands, not only in Dubai and UAE, but the Middle East and Africa are very important for us. I would say the share of the trade of Dubai and the existence of Chinese companies here in Dubai is also part of the whole story where the growth is coming from.
