Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, October 15, is expected to give an impetus to trade ties between Russia and the UAE.
The visit comes at a time when both countries are looking to boost trade and investment relations.
“Moscow is looking to further deepen its commercial and business relations with the UAE,” Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive officer of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia’s leading sovereign fund, told Gulf News.
Overall, economic links between Russia and UAE are growing at a fast pace with Mubadala keen to increase its investment projects in Russia.
In 2019, the UAE investment firm made its first foray into the Russian oil and gas sector – its largest investment till date.
Seen in this context, Putin’s visit to the UAE is a step towards driving forward those developments.
“The way UAE has reduced its dependency on oil and advanced in specialised areas like technology and artificial intelligence (IA) is quite simply very remarkable. Those are among the key areas which Russia would like to explore and benefit from,” Dmitriev added.
Pertinently, economic cooperation between Russia and the UAE is on the upswing in several areas including energy security.
“Russia deeply values the significant contribution that the UAE is making to the global oil cooperation under the Opec plus,” the RDIF head noted.
Russia deeply values the significant contribution that the UAE is making to the global oil cooperation under the Opec plus.
Last month, the Opec plus group met in Abu Dhabi to underscore the critical need for continued commitment in support of global oil market stability
Agreements
During Putin’s short visit, as many as 15 agreements in the fields of nuclear power, oil and environment will be signed to develop a comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries.
“Nuclear power is a major area of cooperation between Russia and the UAE. Among other aspects we shall be exploring small and medium models of nuclear generation that follows very high standards of safety and global best practices,” Dmitriev concluded.
