JEDDAH: The total volume of the UAE’s foreign trade during five decades amounted to about 34.23 trillion dirhams ($9.4 trillion), according to the database of the UN Conference on Trade and Development.
During the period between 1971 and 2020, the state’s trade balance achieved a surplus of about 4.76 trillion dirhams.
UNCTAD data showed that the UAE’s foreign trade volume doubled 473 times, rising from 4.2 billion dirhams in 1971 to 2 trillion dirhams at the end of last year, according to a local newspaper.
The cumulative balance of foreign direct investment inflows in the country increased from 28 million dirhams in 1971 to about 73.46 billion dirhams by the end of 2020.
Over the past five decades, foreign trade was distributed among exports by 57 percent with a value of 19.5 trillion dirhams, and imports by 43 percent with a value of 14.7 trillion dirhams.
UAE exports multiplied 380 times, rising from 3.1 billion dirhams in 1971 to 1.17 trillion dirhams at the end of last year, and imports multiplied 730 times, rising from 1.13 billion dirhams to 828 billion dirhams by the end of 2020.
According to the data, foreign trade at the end of the first decade of the union’s founding doubled 28 times to 117.5 billion dirhams, 33 times at the end of 1991 to 140 billion dirhams, and 74 times at the beginning of the current millennium to 315 billion dirhams, and by the end of the fourth decade 462 times to 1.9 trillion dirhams.
And the year 2019 topped the list of the highest years in the volume of foreign trade, with a value of 2.4 trillion dirhams.
