India Among Leading Exporters to UAE Free Zones.

DUBAI: India has featured in the list of leading exporters to UAE free zones last year with a total export value of USD 30 billion (110.4 billion dirhams), or 66 per cent of the total value of the country's imports.

China, India, US, Japan, UK, South Korea, Germany, France, Malaysia, and Hungary, respectively were the leading exporters.

In terms of imports and re-exports, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, India, Kuwait, Qatar, Pakistan , Egypt, Hong Kong , and Belgium consecutively were on top with a gross value of USD 20.2 billion (74.2 billion dirhams), representing 62 per cent of the total UAE export and re-exports, figures released by the UAE's Federal Customs Authority (FCA) said.

In 2009, the total trade volume in UAE free zones amounted to approximately USD 78 billion (286.6 billion dirhams), of which imports accounted for USD 45.7 billion (167.897 billion dirhams), while exports and re-exports reached USD 32.3 billion (118.7 billion dirhams).

FCA announced today that during 2009, the total trade volume of free zones in terms of weight reached about 23.1 million tons, including 15.2 million tons of imports, 7.9 million tons of exports and re-exports.

Thus, the daily average weight of imported and exported shipments and consignments dealt with by the different free zones amounted to about 96,000 tons per day on the basis of official working hours with an average of 12,000 tons per hour.

The exports of the UAE free zones to the GCC countries rose in 2009 compared to its imports, which means that GCC region is a key export destination for UAE free zones.

In 2009, the trade volume with this region amounted to almost 30.6bn dirhams, of which imports represented 3.6bn dirhams, compared to 27bn dirhams in exports.

According to the Authority Saudi Arabia was the leading trading partner among GCC countries with trade at 58 per cent of the GCC total volume. It was followed by Qatar representing 16 per cent of total volume), Kuwait 15 per cent, Bahrain 7 per cent and Oman 5 per cent.

FCA has revealed that phones topped the list of imports in the UAE free zones last year, with a gross value of 21.8 billion dirhams, followed by oil and minerals 13.6 billion dirhams and gold 13.5 billion dirhams.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com