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Dubai: Dubai's trade with large European markets is slowing down, while China and India are taking over the market, a report released by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry showed.
Dubai's trade with the rest of the world ballooned to Dh663 billion in 2007 from Dh510 billion in 2006 - a gain of 30 per cent.
A huge chunk of the total trade, about 23 per cent, was secured by China and India, whose combined trade value stood at Dh154 billion in 2007, outstripping the Dh86 billion secured by the US, Japan and Australia. The five countries are considered the largest contributors to the positive growth of Dubai's trade.
The largest contributors to falling trade with Europe were the UK, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Finland.
Dubai's trade with Denmark, Luxembourg and Finland dipped significantly by 43.4 per cent, 86.4 per cent and 24.3 per cent respectively last year, while that with the Netherlands was stagnant.
Dubai's trade with the UK went up slightly from Dh20 billion in 2006 to Dh22 billion in 2007. But the Dubai Chamber reported that during the last three years, imports from the country had actually been "stationary, with some very slight declines".
"Thus, despite the growth in exports, total trade with UK actually slowed down, contributing negatively to growth," the report said.
A source from Dubai Chamber's Data Management and Research Department said the decline in Dubai's trade with Europe could be attributed, among other factors, to the strengthening of the euro against the dollar.
"The US dollar-euro exchange rate could be affecting imports from Europe, as goods from European countries have become much more expensive," a researcher said.
"Imports from European countries are heavily concentrated on electronic goods, machineries and transport equipment. Increasingly, large values of these goods are being imported from Japan, South Korea, China, USA and Australia."
Data released by Dubai World's Department of Statistics showed that Dubai had been heavily buying goods from China, spending about Dh68 billion on imports in 2007 alone, up from Dh46 billion in 2006. The trend is expected to continue, as China's heavy and technology-based industries are growing rapidly.
The five biggest imports from China were machinery, electrical and electronics equipment (Dh33 billion); base metals and their products (Dh8.4 billion); textiles and textile articles (Dh8.3 billion); miscellaneous manufactured articles (Dh4 billion) and plastics rubber products (Dh2 billion).
Dubai's imports from India, heavily dominated by gold and diamond, hit Dh43 billion last year from Dh28 billion in 2006. In 2007, the emirate spent Dh22 billion on India's precious and semi-precious stones and metals; Dh4.7 billion on base metals and their products; Dh4 billion on machinery, electrical and electronics equipment; Dh3 billion on textiles and textile articles and Dh2.6 billion on vegetable products.
Looking at the trade patterns for 2006 and 2007, the Dubai Chamber said the biggest contributor to declines in Dubai's total trade with Europe was Finland. Dubai's total trade with the country fell by 47 per cent in 2006 and 24 per cent in 2007.
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