DUBAI, May 12 (Reuters) – Trade between the United \u2060Arab \u2060Emirates and Syria more than doubled \u2060in 2025 and has further to grow, a UAE minister said on Tuesday, \u200baddressing a Damascus investment forum that signalled rapidly warming ties between the states.<\/p>\n
UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade \u200cThani Al Zeyoudi told the first \u200cSyrian-Emirati Investment Forum that non-oil trade between the United Arab Emirates and Syria reached a record $1.4 billion in \u20602025, up \u2060132% from the previous year. He said the increase opens prospects for expanding \u200bbilateral trade.<\/p>\n
The Syrian and Emirati sides reached a series of preliminary agreements on dozens of investment projects in the tourism, construction, infrastructure, agriculture, aviation and logistics sectors during the two-day event.<\/p>\n
The UAE, a strong opponent of Islamist movements across the \u200bMiddle East, has moved more slowly than Saudi Arabia and Qatar in expanding\u00a0ties with the new \u2060Syrian \u2060government led by President Ahmed \u2060al-Sharaa, a\u00a0former al \u200bQaeda commander.<\/p>\n
But a gradual improvement in ties has accelerated since the start of\u00a0the Iran war, as the \u200bUAE came under Iranian attack \u2060and Sharaa repeatedly expressed solidarity with Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n
Anwar Gargash, top diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, said in April Syria was among the most prominent Arab countries that “held a positive stance towards the UAE”.<\/p>\n
The investment forum was held at the Presidential Palace in Damascus and attended by Sharaa, ministers and senior officials from both countries.<\/p>\n
Mohamed \u2060Alabbar, founder of Emirati real estate development giant Emaar, said the company was studying projects \u2060in Damascus worth up to $12 billion, and projects on Syria’s coast worth up to $7 billion.<\/p>\n
Syrian Economy and Industry Minister Nidal Shaar said the two sides had agreed to form a Syrian technical delegation to visit the UAE in the coming period to develop a comprehensive plan and implementation roadmap for the recent agreements.<\/p>\n
Etihad Airways, the UAE’s national carrier, on Monday announced the resumption of flights between Abu Dhabi and Damascus in mid-June, after suspending operations in 2012 following the outbreak of the Syrian conflict.<\/p>\n
Syria has been seeking to attract foreign investment to support an economy \u2060devastated by more than a decade of war and Western sanctions, most of which were lifted at the end of last year.<\/p>\n
Over the past year, Damascus has signed several billion-dollar memoranda of understanding with Gulf investors, including companies from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, while also securing deals with \u200bU.S. companies, like the oil and gas deep-water exploration deal with Chevron.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by \u200bFeras Dalatey in Dubai; Editing by Tom Perry\/Keith Weir)<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Thomson Reuters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI, May 12 (Reuters) – Trade between the United \u2060Arab \u2060Emirates and Syria more than doubled \u2060in 2025…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1393,1304,49,351,95,272,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-110487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-syria","8":"tag-collections-world","9":"tag-international-trade","10":"tag-middle-east","11":"tag-reuters","12":"tag-syria","13":"tag-united-arab-emirates","14":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116562682449793348","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}