UAE-Greece Joint Committee Meeting Begins

UAE Foreign Minister H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and his Greek counterpart Stavros Dimas today opened the first meeting of the UAE-Greece Joint Committee. In his opening speech, Sheikh Abdullah thanked Minister Dimas for hosting the meeting and congratulated on the formation of the new Greek government. Sheikh Abdullah expressed UAE's keenness to strengthen ties with Greece, saying the committee's first meeting was a result of a sincere will to further bolster cooperation and coordination on different issues.

He said the meeting coincided with the Economic Forum "which constitutes an opportunity for the interested parties in the government and private sectors to exchange views and to identify investment potentials in Greece." Sheikh Abdullah emphasised the importance of enhancing the economic partnership between the two countries by increasing the size of direct investments and by finalizing ratification of the agreement on the avoidance of double taxation. The UAE ratified the agreement on 27 June 2010.

He indicated that the joint committee meeting will discuss ways to strengthen bilateral cooperation in commercial, financial, investment and judicial fields, as well as transport and energy. It will also review draft Memoranda of Understanding for cooperation in higher education, defence, tourism, archaeology and healthcare.

For his part, the Greek Foreign Minister welcomed Sheikh Abdullah and his accompanying delegation "His Highness the Foreign Minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and I had an excellent meeting and discussion. We discussed bilateral and regional issues within the framework of our meeting and the convening of the first Greek-United Arab Emirates Joint Cooperation Committee, with which we are starting this major effort to further develop not only political relations - which are at an excellent level - but also our economic relations, which are developing and have a lot of room for further growth, he added.

He went on to say: "I would like to thank His Highness for his personal efforts to make this meeting succeed and for the participation of many important UAE companies and investors. We have a great friend of Greece, and we assure him that our country will be a longstanding friend, ally and partner of the Unite Arab Emirates. Again, I welcome him and the investors and businesspersons from the UAE, and I wish them every success." At the end of the meeting, the UAE and Greek foreign ministers attended signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation between the two countries in financial markets. The MoU entails exchange of expertise and best practices in regulation of financial markets.

The MOU was signed by Abdullah Al Turaifi, Chief Executive Officer of the Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) and Konstantinos Botopoulos, Chairman of the Hellenic Capital Market Commission.