The Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, ADCCI, has organised its first online B2B matchmaking event, which witnessed the participation of more than 100 Emirati and Korean businesses.
This virtual online meeting is held instead of a physical one considering the current Coronavirus pandemic and the applied precautionary measure including social distancing.
At the beginning of the meeting, Abdullah Ghurair Al Qubaisi, Deputy Director General of the ADCCI, said that the Chamber exerts hard efforts to support the business community and regulate its affairs in Abu Dhabi as well as help stabilise it economically, especially under the current global economic situation.
“However, the Abu Dhabi Chamber keeps on supporting the hard efforts of the government in Abu Dhabi and the UAE in confronting the challenges of the pandemic, managing the crisis to insure business continuity, and in activating the role of the private sector in the economic development,” he added.
Al Qubaisi pointed out that the Chamber’s Representative Office in Seoul coordinated and agreed with Korea International Trade Association to organize this online B2B matchmaking between Emirati businesses and their Korean counterparts from small and medium enterprises specialized in various sectors including general trading, consumables, healthcare, cosmetics and food and beverages.
The Deputy Director General noted that the UAE and Korea are celebrating their 40th anniversary of diplomatic relationship this month thanks to the wise leadership of both countries.
“The economic relations between the UAE and South Korea have witnessed considerable development in all sectors,” he added, saying that the number of Korean companies registered at the UAE Ministry of Economy rose to 138; and the number of the registered agencies at the ministry is 215 ones, whereas the number of registered Korean trademarks is 3,802.
Additionally, the volume of Korean investments in the UAE stood at $2,678 million.
“Non-oil trade between the UAE and South Korea reached $4.9 billion in 2019; $3.8 billion of which are imports from Korea, $715.6 million are Emirati exports to Korea; and $437.4 were re-export from the UAE to Korea. The trade balance surplus was in favor of South Korea with around $2.7 billion.”
Al Qubaisi stated that these numbers point to a huge progress for the relationship between the two sides in the future, which reflects the will of the two countries’ leaderships in realizing their joint interest in pushing the wheel of economic relations forward.
For his part, Hyun Chul Kim, Executive Managing Director of Global Marketing Group – KITA, said that the meeting is an outcome to the exceptional cooperation with the Abu Dhabi Chamber considering the cooperation agreements and memorandums of understanding that bind the two sides together.
He added that together the Abu Dhabi Chamber and KITA work continuously to benefit all parties and to promote for investments and trade opportunities that allow Korean businesses to enter Abu Dhabi markets and which would help develop the economic relations between the two countries.
