Germany, UAE set to boost bilateral trade, build business park
Dubai, May 25 (IANS) United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Germany have started construction of a business theme park here that will serve as a trade hub for German businesses in the gulf region, WAM news agency reported Sunday.
The business park is being built at a cost of 1.1 billion UAE dirhams (about $300 million) at the Dubai Silicon Oasis area.
UAE Foreign Trade Minister H.E. Sheikha Lubna bint Khaled Al Qasimi and German Consul-General to Dubai Johann-Adolf Cohausz announced the construction of the theme park at a ceremony here Saturday.
“Our economic ties with Germany have never been stronger than today. I believe the park represents another important milestone in our ever-evolving partnership,” Sheikha Lubna told the business delegates of both the countries who came to attend the event Sunday.
Presently, there are more than 600 German companies operating in the UAE. According to a report, German bilateral trade with the UAE reached more than $9.8 billion in 2007.
German Consul-General Cohausz said: “Ever since Germany engaged in a strategic partnership with the UAE in 2004, business relations between the countries have grown manifold.”
“UAE is our most important trading partner in the entire Arab world, and the number of German companies operating here has risen to more than 600. I am confident that German Business Park will constitute a further stimulus for German business activity in the region,” he said.
The Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority and Bin Jabr Group of Abu Dhabi are the other partners in the project.
The project is scheduled for completion in late 2009. The park will be an ecologically green building that will tap solar power for its climate control systems.