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Italy-UAE trade volume rises, Italian exports surge 22.6% in H1

The jewellery sector apart from oil and gas has been the main driver of trade

Italian exports to the UAE soared by 22.6 per cent in the first six months of this year and bilateral trade is expected to hit 8 billion euros in 2023, a top official said in Abu Dhabi.

“Apart from oil and gas where we registered 65 million euros in the first of six months of 2022, this is a mirror of the trend in the total trade. In the first semester of 2022, Italian exports towards the UAE increased by 22.6 per cent,” Amedeo Scarpa, Italian Trade Commissioner to the UAE, told Khaleej Times during an interview.

Scarpa noted that Italy is one of the most important suppliers of components for the oil and gas industry. The UAE’s demand for Italian oil and gas technologies continues to grow with almost 143 million euros worth of products imported in 2021.

“Over the last few years, the total trade from Italy, the export from Italy to UAE continued to increase. We are the third global supplier for this market and among the 27 European Union countries we are the number one supplier,” he said on the sidelines of Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec) 2022.

Scarpa underlined that the bilateral trade during the pandemic continued to remain strong. “Thanks to the resilience of ‘Made in Italy’, even during the pandemic, specifically in 2021, the total trade with the UAE and the total Italian export increased by 5 per cent, not compared to 2020, but compared to 2019.”

Scarpa pointed out that the jewellery sector apart from oil and gas has been the main driver of trade. “From one side we do import gold, we do import precious stones, but on the other side, we re-export jewels with added value. Right after jewels, which is almost 1 billion euros in value, we do have equipment including the equipment for oil and gas.”

At Adipec, Italy’s official pavilion, which hosted 28 companies, was organised by the Italian Trade Agency and supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

Scarpa said that the Italy-UAE trade relationship in the oil and gas industry is one of the most enduring ever. “New drivers and policies are there to boost the bilateral win-win cooperation for next decades. In particular, the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan allocated approximately 3.6 billion euros to boost the development of the power’s generation supply chains.”

Giving a forecast for next year, Scarpa expects the total value of bilateral trade to hit around 8 billion euros. “I’m quite confident that the total trade will overpass 8 billion euros and the Italian surplus will increase.

"But what is more important is that we are on the way to total trade worth 10 billion euros. This is one of the objectives of the policy of the UAE government, because Italy is one of the 10 countries for which the UAE planned the so-called 10 by 10 plans. This sets a target of reaching at least 10 billion euros or increase by 10 per cent the actual total trade. And we are realising really a win-win plan, a win-win programme.”