ISRAEL, UAE SIGN FREE TRADE DEAL, FIRST WITH AN ARAB COUNTRY
DUBAI/VIENNA: Israel signed a free trade deal with the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, its first with an Arab country, building on their US-brokered normalisation of relations in 2020.
Israel’s ambassador to the oilrich UAE, Amir Hayek, tweeted “mabruk” - congratulations in Arabic - with a photo of Emirati and Israeli officials holding documents at a signing ceremony in Dubai. The Emirati envoy to Israel, Mohamed Al Khaja, hailed as an “unprecedented achievement” the deal that, according to the Israeli side, scraps customs duties on 96% of all products traded.
The 2020 normalisation deal was part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords that also saw Israel establish diplomatic ties with Bahrain and Morocco.
Two-way trade between Israel and the UAE last year totalled some $ 900 million dollars, according to Israeli figures.
UAE-Israel Business Council president Dorian Barak predicted that trade would soon multiply between the regional powerhouse economies.
“UAE-Israel trade will exceed $ 2 billion in 2022, rising to around $5 billion in five years, bolstered by collaboration in renewables, consumer goods, tourism and the life sciences sectors,” he said in a statement.
Nearly 1,000 Israeli companies will be working in and through the UAE by year’s end, he said.
‘Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile above limit’
The UN nuclear watchdog said Monday that it estimated Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium had grown to more than 18 times the limit laid down in Tehran’s 2015 deal with world powers.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said in its latest report on Iran’s nuclear programme that it “estimated that, as of May 15, 2022, Iran’s total enriched stockpile was 3,809.3 kilograms.”
The limit in the 2015 deal was set at 300kg (660 pounds) of a specific compound, the equivalent of 202.8 kg of uranium.