Romanian Foreign Affairs Minister and UAE counterpart sign memorandum of understanding

Romanian Foreign Affairs Minister Teodor Melescanu and his counterpart from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sultan Al Jaber signed on Tuesday in Bucharest, the memorandum of understanding regarding the setting up of a cooperation committee between the two countries, a body that will regularly meet every two years.

"Throughout time, the relations between Romania and the United Arab Emirates have formed a strong and mutually beneficial partnership and the collaboration between our states has opened up in the most diverse domains. The United Arab Emirates are Romania's main economic partners ion the Gulf region and the third in the Arab world," Melescanu stated at a Romania - the United Arab Emirates Business Forum.

According to him, in 2017, bilateral trade reached 366 million US dollars and Romanian imports to the United Arab Emirates went up 39 percent, to 53 million dollars.

"These figures prove the special collaboration potential that we have and the need to boost our efforts in view of consolidating the commercial exchanges," the minister added.

He showed that the two parties have identified, during Tuesday's discussions, the sectors of interest for Romania: commerce, infrastructure, energy, industry, agriculture, education, culture, innovation and research.

"We will have to work together to identify in all these domains projects that are of interest to both parties. I have signed today, together with Mr. Sultan Al Jaber, the memorandum of understanding regarding the setting up of a cooperation committee between Romania's Government and that of the United Arab Emirates. This structure will reunite regularly, every two years in our countries, and in the meantime the groups of experts will work on the concrete projects that will make the object of discussions at the committees' level," Melescanu also said.

The Foreign Affairs Minister showed the guests from the Emirates that there are endless business opportunities in Romania, owing to certain regulations adopted by the Government, included, meant to ensure a business climate based on development, innovation and the strengthening of the business milieu.

In his turn, the UAE Foreign Affairs Minister, Sultan Al Jaber affirmed during the conference, that it is high time the relations between the two countries moved on to the next level.

"We want to extend exports to Romania, we want to capitalise on more opportunities that we see here, for an enhanced mutual interest, to both parties' benefit. Romanian and the UAE business people should explore the two countries' business benefits," the high official said.

In his turn, the Chair of the Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Mihai Daraban, present at the event, stated that there are solid trade exchanges between the two parties.

"We have 74 economic agents with capital from the United Emirates with a 24 million euro subscribed capital. We hope that in the future we will have more airlines, we are looking forward to it. We continue to be open to dialogue," Daraban said. AGERPRES (RO - author: Florentina Cernat, editor: Mariana Nica; EN - author: Simona Iacob, editor: Bogdan Gabaroi)