The value of national non-oil commodity exports in the UAE increased around AED6.9 billion during the first 9 months of 2016, totalling AED128.7 billion, an increase of 5.6 percent from the same period in 2015, which totalled AED121.8 billion, according to the results of the country’s foreign trade statistics that were announced by the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority.

According to the result, the total value of the UAE’s foreign trade during the first nine months of 2016 reached around AED813.7 billion, compared to AED791.6 billion for the same period in 2015, an increase of AED22.1 billion or 2.8 percent.

The report said that the imports represented a large percentage of the country’s non-oil trade with the outside world, with the data indicating that its value reached AED520.9 billion in the first nine months of 2016, compared to AED503.6 billion during the same period in 2015, an increase of 3.4 percent.

According to the report, the trade in re-exported commodities reached AED164.2 billion, compared to AED166.2 billion during the same period of 2015, where the value of re-exported commodities decreased to around AED2 billion or 1.2 percent during the same period in 2015.

As for the total size of commercial trade till September 2016, the data states that Asian non-Arab countries took first place in terms of the value of commercial trade, totalling AED328.7 billion, or 40.4 percent of the total of the value of the country’s external trade.

According to the data for the first nine months of 2016, the total trade value with GCC countries reached AED73.4 billion, which is nine percent of the country’s total foreign trade, compared to AED79.1 billion during the same period of 2015, a decrease of 7.3 percent.

Mohamed Hassan Ahli, Executive Director for the Calculation and Data Sector in the Competitiveness and Statistics Authority, said that the size of the commercial trade is a calculative indicator that reflects the level of openness to the rest of the world, and represents a translation to the policy of commercial openness that the country followed to diversify its economy, which contributed to the increase in the value of national commercial non-oil export of 5.6 percent during the first nine months of 2016, as well as the increase in the value of imports during the same period of 2015 of 3.4 percent.