Middle East Monitor / July 4, 2022
Israel has announced that its trade with Arab countries has reached record increases within one year alone, as a result of the numerous deals and economic agreements struck between them in their normalization of relations.
According to a tweet by Asher Friedman, the director of the Institute for Peace for the Abraham Agreements, bilateral trade with Arab nations “smashed records in June, when it witnessed many exciting developments in the areas of innovation, diplomacy and academia”. This was particularly in the case of trade with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain.
Tel Aviv’s trade with Abu Dhabi, his organization’s June newsletter detailed, reached $201.4 million last month – a 130 per cent increase from May last year. That result comes after the two countries signed a trade deal over a month ago and established a joint multimillion-dollar project in Ghana last month. Trade with Manama also skyrocketed from zero to $1.2 million within the year.
Israel’s trade with Jordan to $55 million, an increase of 54 per cent from last year, followed by Egypt with a 41 per cent increase to $23.6 million. Morocco, too, reached $3.1 million in trade deals with Israel this year, marking a 94 per cent increase.
Since 2019, the UAE and Bahrain were amongst a number of Arab countries – as well as Sudan and Morocco – which normalized ties with Israel. Aside from the significant geopolitical shifts that process caused, it opened the door to numerous trade, tourism, investment and educational deals. Economic cooperation was at the forefront of that.
Now, as was predicted by many back when the ties were normalized, that cooperation has proven to result in a rapidly growing trade sector between Israel and those Arab nations.
The advancing relationships also seemingly expand to the defence sector, with Israel recently announcing that it is establishing a US-sponsored regional air defence alliance to counter Iranian influence.
