RIYADH: UAE’s non-oil foreign trade reached a record-breaking 3.5 trillion dirhams ($953 billion) in 2023, significantly increasing from the 2.2 trillion dirhams recorded the year before. Trade between the country and its top 10 crucial foreign partners expanded by 26 percent last year, as stated by Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, in a post on the social media platform X on Sunday. Al-Maktoum lauded the nation’s accomplishments, highlighting that the UAE continues to set new records despite global challenges. “We indicated at the beginning of 2023 that it would be a record economic year,” he said. “The UAE has established new bridges of cooperation through comprehensive partnership agreements in 2023,” the country’s ruler added. “Our foreign trade with the 10 most important trading partners has jumped by 26 percent, with Turkiye by more than 103 percent, with Hong Kong-China by 47 percent, and with the United States by 20 percent. And that was within just one year,” he added. In a separate post on X, UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade Thani Al-Zeyoudi stated that the nation surpassed the 1 trillion dirhams mark for exports of goods and services for the first time. “Non-oil exports of goods now make up 17.1 percent of our total non-oil foreign trade, compared to 13 percent in 2018. Trade continues to drive opportunity for UAE industry,” Al-Zeyoudi said. He further explained that the nation’s bilateral trade with Turkiye, which saw the signing of a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in March, increased by 103.7 percent last year. “Making it the fastest growing among our top 10 trading partners and revealing the benefits of closer economic ties,” he added. Furthermore, the UAE’s non-oil foreign trade surged to an unprecedented 1.239 trillion dirhams in the first half of 2023, marking a 14.4 percent increase from the same period in 2022 and a 3 percent rise from the second half of 2022. According to data from the UAE’s Ministry of Economy, this growth continues the nation’s consistent upward trend in foreign trade, which has seen quarter-on-quarter increases since 2020.