15 October
We held our annual Plenary Conference in London on 15 October, where we set out our vision for the future and our ambition to support the lifting of bilateral trade from the current £25bn a year to £30bn a year by 2030.
It was a pleasure to see so many of our members and stakeholders at the event. In particular we are grateful to Mansoor Abulhoul, UAE Ambassador to London, Lord Sarwar, Minister of State for Trade, Lord Stockwood, former Minister for Investment; HE Meera Al Suwaidi, Head of Sovereign Investment Partnerships at Mubadala Investment Company; HE Badr Jafar, Special Envoy for Business & Philanthropy; Mohammed Al Marzouqi, CEO HSBC UAE, Simon Williams, Chief Economist, CEEMEA at HSBC and all the team at HSBC and, of course our Co-Chairs HE Saeed Al Hajeri and Lord Davies, for all their support in delivering such a timely event.
2027 will be an important year for bilateral trade – we will hopefully see the implementation of the UK-GCC Free Trade Agreement and the beginning of negotiations for a UAE-UK CEPA Agreement. The Business Council will also be launching a series of new campaigns to foster collaboration in new and emerging sectors, such as digital assets and energy resilience. We look forward to working with all our members and partners in delivering our programme for the year ahead.
You can see pics of our Plenary Conference here.
And videos of all of the sessions at the Plenary will be uploaded on our You Tube channel shortly: https://www.youtube.com/@uae-ukbusinesscouncil5712