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CNN’s Becky Anderson spoke to the UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade Thani Al Zeyoudion the ground in Davos about his forecast for the UAE’s growth this year, and the status of the country’s strategic relations. 

Key quotes from Al Zeyoudi:

On his outlook for GDP growth in 2024:

"Let’s go back a year ago. And that was last year. Everyone was very pessimistic about the global growth, and there will be — there would be a recession throughout 2023. We ended the year without recession. So, we’re starting the year of 2024 with the same mistake. But no, there will be growth. It won’t be as much, but at least we’re going go toward the right direction hopefully."

"This year is going to be continuing the growth. We’re expecting a growth more than what we achieved in 2023."

On the UAE’s growth strategy given regional instability:

"We have to focus on our vision. And our vision is to continue the growth and the development. If we’re going to be distracted with such major stuff that’s happening in the region, we’ll not achieve our goals. We’re living in a region which has been going through a major event for the last 20 years. Did that distract us? No. We continue with the same vision continuity. What’s going to be next? We’re going to continue our openness, reaching out to countries, diversifying our international investments, diversifying our local investments and reaching out to new partners." 

On strengthening ties with countries around the world:

"So far, we concluded 13 agreements in two years with countries beating each other when it comes to the timeline. We always get into an agreement with the countries that we have to do it in a short period. Otherwise, the global economy is changing. Our domestic economies are changing and will not be able to reflect whatever we agreed at the beginning on the negotiation so far.

How we’re going to move by 2024 and moving forward, we want to reach to 90 percent of the global trade. And this year, we’re going to focus heavily on Africa, some of the far east of Asia and Latin Americas. We’re about to close a few countries as well very soon. So, the first quarter of this year is going to have a couple of agreements, which is almost at the final touches." 

On strategic relations with India:

"Last year, 2023 until the end of September, our non-oil trade numbers grew by 12.2 percent.

Although the whole world went in a decline. This is basically because of the movements that which we did and the openness which we had to the whole ecosystem in the UAE.

India, we’re moving ahead toward the $100 billion bilateral trade, and things are progressing. 

Flow of investment from both sides is growing. We’re the largest investor in India last year. And this year, we’ll be exploring more investments."