Xi's visit to UAE helps boost economic ties

A picture taken on April 4, 2017, shows the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest tower, dominating pedestrians crossing a bridge over the water canal, which links the city's business hub to the Gulf. [Photo: Xinhua/AFP Photo]

United Arab Emirates is the first Gulf country to forge a strategic partnership with China. In recent years, a series of investment projects are underway as economic ties are improving.

It's expected that Chinese President Xi Jinping' visit will lift economic ties to a higher level and to promote investments and development projects.

Abu Dhabi's Khalifa Port has been billed as a model of cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, with the port's new terminal slated to go into operation in 2019.

Last year, China's shipping giant COSCO forged a partnership with Abu Dhabi Ports to build a new container terminal at Khalifa Port that will double its cargo capacity.

The project broke ground last November. The automated container terminal is expected to go into operation in the first quarter of 2019.

Ju Weiping, the general manager of COSCO Shipping's Abu Dhabi Container Terminal, thinks that the project further expands the flow of commodities between the countries along the Belt and Road, as well as between the world's other major trading blocs.

"Once the transit network is built, it will enhance the port's function as a gateway and will greatly promote exports and imports between Abu Dhabi and the surrounding regions."

China has been the largest trading partner of the United Arab Emirates for many years, and 60 percent of its exports to the Middle East pass through the country.

The further development of the China-UAE strategic cooperative partnership is expected to give a boost to trade through the port.

Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansoori is the UAE's minister for the economy.

"We benefit from that as a nation. You combine that also with the strategy of export that China has and how they want also to do the redistribution within the region. This actually becomes a win-win situation for both, for us as UAE as a major hub reinforcing ourselves here but also for China making sure that their products are being distributed in a timely manner to the rest of the region and beyond that in the world also."

The first clean coal power plant in the Middle East is currently under construction in Dubai. The project is being built by a Chinese company.

Located 30 kilometers south of Dubai, the Hassyan Clean Coal Power Plant project kicked off at the end of 2016.

ACWA Power Harbin is an investor in the project, which is expected to provide electricity for the Dubai World Expo in 2020, and will provide 20 percent of Dubai's generating capacity when it goes online.

Mohammed Abunayyan, the chairman of ACWA Power International, said that this clean coal power plant will be a model for the electricity industry.

"This is the most competitive today in the world and it is going to be the first of its kind in the MENA region. And this is going to be sure and this is the usual way of Dubai. When you come to Dubai and you do it successfully, everybody will follow."

The UAE has become China's second largest trading partner, and is the largest destination for its exports to the Middle East and North Africa. Official data from China shows that bilateral trade reached 41 billion U.S. dollars in 2017.