RIYADH: The UAE’s global trade increased by 19 percent in the first nine months of 2022, Dubai ruler Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum revealed on Wednesday. The country"s foreign trade volume is expected to reach 2.2 trillion dirhams ($599 billion) by the end of 2022, he said in the tweet, compared to 1.9 trillion dirhams in 2021. The UAE"s non-oil foreign trade also grew by 18.9 percent in the first nine months of 2022 year-on-year to reach 1.637 trillion dirhams, the minister of state for foreign trade Thani Al Zeyoudi tweeted on Wednesday. DIFC-based FinTech firms secure $559m in first 9 months of 2022 FinTech firms based in the Dubai International Finance Center have raised as much as 2 billion dirhams during the first nine months of 2022, according to the DIFC FinTech Hive’s 2022 FinTech Report. In 2021, funding activity associated with finTech almost doubled. In addition to this, startups in the Middle East and North Africa region also secured $998 million in 2021, reflecting a 78 percent surge when compared to 2020 figures. The total number of finTech and innovation companies joining DIFC in 2022 has exceeded those that have established operations in 2021. ADNOC’s signs $272m worth of food catering agreements The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company has signed food catering agreements with four UAE firms worth an accumulated 1 billion dirhams. Under the agreements, food catering services will be provided to all companies under ADNOC Group from 2022 up until 2027. The four firms are Royal Catering, Apex National Catering, National Corporation for Tourism & Hotels, and Sodexo Kelvin. As part of ADNOC’s In-Country Value program, over half of the value from the four contracts will be redirected into the UAE’s economy. Abu Dhabi Ports and African Finance Corporation sign agreement Abu Dhabi Ports has signed a cooperation agreement with the African Finance Corporation to address infrastructure gaps across Africa, including integrated ports, warehouses, maritime and logistics hubs. The agreement comes as the African Union projected that the production capacity of African ports is anticipated to hit two billion tons of goods by 2040. This poses a challenge for port work considering that the average waiting time for shipments currently reaches 20 days compared to the current global average of just four. In the past 15 years, the African Finance Corporation has invested over $10 billion in infrastructure projects in 37 African countries.