UAE Minister of State for Entrepreneurship and SMEs, Dr Ahmed Belhoul Al Falasi, has held wide-ranging talks with the UK Minister for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
Dr Al Falasi and Lord Gerald Edgar Grimstone discussed the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit and expanding economic ties during their online meeting.
They also examined diversifying their partnerships in small and medium-sized enterprises and tourism.
Dr Al Falasi highlighted the UAE’s keenness to strengthen cooperation and develop a strategic partnership between the two countries in advanced sectors.
"The tourism sector is one of the drivers of economic development in the UAE and one of the key areas of cooperation between the two countries. The UAE received around 1.4 million visitors from Britain in 2019, and UK citizens accounted for some seven per cent of hotel guests in the UAE during the same year," he said.
Abu Dhabi’s economy continues to show strong momentum in 2025, with new data from the Statistics Centre–Abu Dhabi revealing a GDP of AED 291 billion in the first quarter, up 3.4 per cent year-on-year.
Dubai has launched a programme for first-time home buyers, aiming to make homeownership more accessible and affordable by facilitating priority access to new launches, preferential pricing and tailored mortgage solutions.
Archer Aviation has conducted test flights of its Midnight electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) air taxi services at Al Bateen Executive Airport in Abu Dhabi, marking a key milestone for its planned commercial deployment in the UAE and the expansion of its operations in the region.
US and India trade negotiators are pushing to try to land a tariff-reducing deal ahead of President Donald Trump's July 9 negotiating deadline, but disagreements over US dairy and agriculture remained unresolved, sources familiar with the talks said.
A cyber hacker broke into a database containing the personal information of millions of customers, Qantas said, in Australia's biggest breach in years and a setback for an airline rebuilding trust after a reputational crisis.