Non-oil trade hits Dh928b

The UAE’s non-oil foreign trade has achieved a 23 per cent year-on-year growth, defying all the negative consequences of the global financial crisis and regional instability, the Federal Customs Authority, or FCA, said in its report. The total value of the non-oil foreign trade has soared to Dh927.7 billion in the year from Dh754.3 billion in 2010, showing a robust increase of Dh173.4 billion. Customs data are an important economic standard indicating national economic recovery and the increase of the national products competitiveness in the world markets. It shows the economic policy successes following the financial crisis, the report said. The most significant feature of the growth is that it has built upon an incremental rise of 20-23 per cent monthly, which means the sgrowth is “result of the successful stable policies.” The FCA said imports have restored the growth ratios as prior to the world crisis and that imports have been raised from Dh485.4 billion in 2010 to Dh602.8 billion in 2011, achieving an increase of 24 per cent, reflecting the trust in the UAE economy. One of the positive indicators suggested by the non-oil foreign trade database of the year 2011 is shown in the great development of the exports evaluated at 37 per cent compared to the ratio achieved in the previous year resulting from the increase the exports have undergone from Dh83.1 billion in the year 2010 to Dh114.1 billion in 2011. The report saw strong exports growth due to competitiveness of local goods. And  together with the increase of the exports versus the drop in imports means that the exports contribute to minimise the financial deficit, the FCA said. In the year, re-exports jumped 13 per cent year-on-year to Dh210.8 billion up against Dh185.9 billion in 2010. Gold, according to the FCA, came first among exports in 2011 with Dh62 billion, followed by fire-fighting, guiding and other ships with Dh4.3 billion; petroleum, oils and other derivatives with Dh3.8 billion; unfabricated aluminium with Dh2.1 billion; and ornaments and jewellery with Dh2 billion. On the level of re-exports, diamonds came first with a total value of Dh62.8 billion, followed by ornaments and jewellery and related parts at Dh18 billion; automobiles  at Dh12.7 billion; and telephones sets at Dh10.4 billion. The total weight of non-oil foreign trade reached 85.1 million tonnes, while it was 52.2 million tonnes for imports, 24.3 million tonnes for exports and 8.5 million tonnes for re-exports. The daily average of the weight of the dispatches which are handled in the custom duties offices during the last year is evaluated at 354,000 tonnes per day with an average of 44 thousand tonnes per hour.