India is Dubai's largest export destination
Friday, 15 December 2006, 18:30 IST
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Mumbai: India emerged as Dubai's largest export destination while diamonds, precious stones and precious metals topped the emirate's non-oil imports in the first nine months of 2006. Dubai's non-oil direct trade reached 231 billion dirhams ($62.89 billion) in the January-September period, says the Dubai government's department of tourism and commerce marketing (DTCM) representative office here. Dubai has rapidly diversified over the last decade or so to emerge as the main trading and industrial hub of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with its tourist promotion focusing on its varied shopping and leisure facilities. Imports formed the largest part of Dubai's non-oil foreign trade, reaching 158.78 billion dirhams ($43.23 billion), with diamonds, precious stones, semi-precious stones and precious metals topping the sector list with imports worth 34.46 billion dirhams ($9.38 billion). The other two major import categories were industrial equipment, machinery, electronics and spare parts that accounted for 20.44 billion dirham ($5.57 billion), followed by the automotive industry with 16.02 billion dirhams ($4.36 billion). India has emerged as Dubai's top export destination with transactions worth 3.43 billion dirhams ($933.89 million), ahead of Pakistan (1.01 billion dirhams), Iran (649 million dirhams) the US (518 million dirhams) and Kuwait (483 million dirhams.) China, however, leads as the top exporters to Dubai with 19.80 billion dirhams ($5.39 billion) worth exports, followed by India with 17.10 billion dirhams ($4.66 billion). Other major exporters to Dubai are the U.S (11.50 billion dirhams), Germany (11.14 billion dirhams) and Japan (10.66 billion dirhams). On the re-export front, Iran remains the major market with 10.54 billion dirhams worth, followed by India with 8.56 billion dirhams, Switzerland (6.05 billion dirhams), Iraq (4.20 billion dirhams) and Pakistan (2 billion dirhams).
Source: IANS
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