There is a Chinese saying that sums up the partnership between the United Arab Emirates and China."A long road tests a horse's strength; time reveals a person's heart." In other words, the strongest partnerships take time to build, are tested by distance and are reinforced by results. The UAE and China have been building ours for more than 40 years, through every market cycle.
Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber
Last year, non-oil trade between our two countries crossed 800 billion yuan ($118 billion) for the first time, growing by nearly a quarter in a single year, making China the UAE's largest trading partner, and the UAE China's largest partner in the Middle East and Africa.
In April, His Highness Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, led a senior UAE delegation to Beijing, where two dozen agreements were signed across the sectors of energy, technology, finance and infrastructure.
Recently, I visited Shanghai to help keep the positive momentum going and turn shared ambition into commercial reality, because a partnership this strong is not meant to stand still.
