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Free trade agreement opens new horizons for Israel, UAE

The economy and trade ministers of Israel and the United Arab Emirates concluded last week negotiations on a ground-breaking agreement for a free trade zone, the first of its kind Israel has ever reached with an Arab country.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid (L) welcomes the United Arab Emirates' Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan upon his arrival for the Negev summit, at Sde Boker in the southern Negev desert, Israel, March 27, 2022.

Israel’s Minister of the Economy Orna Barbivai and Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Trade Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi announced April 1 that they had just completed negotiations to create a comprehensive free trade zone between the two countries. The agreement is expected to go into effect once the two ministers sign it, and it is ratified by both countries’ governments.

Practical deliberations about the agreement began last November, just over a year after the signing of the Abraham Accords. The normalization agreement launched a new era in the relations between the two countries, including burgeoning economic and commercial relations.

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