Economy remains robust, says Abdullah

Manama: The global financial crisis has proven that the UAE economy is robust enough to weather onslaughts, Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Foreign Minister, has said.

"The international financial crisis has shown the vitality and robustness of our economy. Our economy is linked to the world and gets affected by what usually impacts it. Yet, it is able to resist the effects of negative developments," Shaikh Abdullah told reporters in Manama.

"We consider what has happened as challenges and lessons that we may use to enhance our systems and programmes," he said at the end of a meeting of the Bahrain-UAE joint high commission.

"We look forward towards a future with more development programmes and implementation of economic projects," he said.

Shaikh Abdullah said the experience has been a strong indication of the robustness of the UAE economy and federation. "It is true that the crisis is painful, but it is highly significant for those who doubted the success of the UAE," he said.

Donation

Shaikh Abdullah said that the situation in Yemen was of paramount importance to the Gulf states, a fact that was stressed during the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in Kuwait this month.

"The UAE has agreed to donate $750 million [Dh2.75 billion] to Yemen to help it achieve stability which we all view with great interest. We also support Saudi Arabia in confronting the group of people who have broken the law and religious values. We believe that our support to Yemen and Saudi Arabia is the way forward to confront this group," he said.