Abu Dhabi Chamber Emphasizes on Increasing Italian Industrial Investments in Abu Dhabi

The Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry held a meeting with an Italian trade delegation from Umbria region headed by His Excellency Dr. Mauro Agostini, Director General of Umbria Development Authority, at the Chamber’s Tower.

His Excellency Dr. Al-Taher Musbeh Al-Kindi, 2nd Deputy Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Chamber, chaired the Abu Dhabi Chamber Side accompanied by Abu Dhabi Chamber board members His Excellency Sanad Al-Miqbali and His Excellency Khan Zaman, and Mr. Abdullah Ghurair Al-Qybaisi, Deputy Director General of the Abu Dhabi Chamber. Representatives of more than 150 Italian and Emirati companies operating in different sectors in Abu Dhabi attended the meeting.

In a welcoming speech he delivered at the beginning of the meeting, Al-Kindi said that the visit of the Italian delegation is an opportunity to discuss the best methods of improving cooperation in order to increase trade exchange and communication between businessmen and companies in the emirate of Abu Dhabi and Umbria region in Italy. As you may know, Italy occupies a distinguished place amongst our trade partners and comes at the top of the list of the exporting countries to the UAE and Abu Dhabi.

The Deputy Director added that Economic and investment cooperation relations between the two sides witnessed over the past few years very important developments that your friendly country has become a preferable destination for Emirati investments in a number of sectors including the manufacturing sector, plane industries, jewelry, oil and gas and Aluminum industries. The volume of Emirati investments in Italy rose considerably over the past few years, besides, the partnership between Etihad Airlines and the Italian Airlines “Alitalia” founded a complete international network for air travel with high capabilities that were able, in a short period of time, to link all the continents of the world and to increase the number of passengers considerably in 2015 and the first half of 2016.

Al-Kindi noted that the ambitions of the Abu Dhabi Chamber to develop the joint economic work, are very high. “In order to achieve them, we will not stop at anything in order to increase the level of trade relations between our two countries and we have to provide all types of support and help for Italian companies, especially those from Umbria region in order to motivate them to invest in our markets and increase their cooperation with Emirati companies, especially in the sectors which your delegation represent which are industrial, agricultural, engineering and civil tools and the environment as well as IT, food processing, jewelries and cosmetics. And that would reflect the joint desire to increase the level of economic and investment cooperation between the two sides to the highest levels,” he said.

Al-Kindi extended an invitation to Italian companies which operate in technologies, knowledge and advanced technologies to start joint industrial projects with Emirati companies and help them transfer and naturalize these technologies, especially those which suit our capabilities and serve our ambitions and futuristic plans of raising the industrial sector and make it a main pole of the national income and help it serve the objectives and pillars of Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030 as well as contributing to the economic boost and active constructional movement in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

For his part, the head of the Italian delegation His Excellency Dr. Mauro Agostini expressed the interest of Italian companies in increasing their cooperation with Emirati companies operating in Abu Dhabi, especially those companies with matching sectors as the members of the Italian delegation including the IT sector, food processing, jewelries, industrial machines, cosmetics, crops and agricultural products.

Dr. Agostini pointed out that 81,000 companies of all sizes work in Umbria which employ more than 350,000 people in all specialties, noting that these companies represent the main pillar of Umbria’s economy. He called on businessmen and companies in Abu Dhabi to increase their investments in Umbria region, especially in the textile sector, food, machines and tools and tourism.

A number of heads and directors of Italian companies and Emirati companies operating in Abu Dhabi spoke of the means of expanding cooperation between companies and sealing off trade partnerships, especially in the sectors which are envisioned by the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030 which would push the wheel of the comprehensive and sustainable economic development process in Abu Dhabi forward.

It is worth noting that the volume of trade exchange between the UAE and Italy exceeded €7 billion by the end of 2015 and the number of Italian companies operating in a number of key sectors in the UAE rose to 600 ones.