Saudi Arabia emerged as the UAE's top trading partner last year, with the country’s exports and re-exports during the first nine months of 2020 totaling 73.58 billion UAE dirhams ($20 billion) official figures showed.

According to the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre (FCSC), Iraq was the second-biggest export market, with its trade hitting 36.5 billion dirhams. Switzerland and India followed at 33.47 billion and 24.78 billion dirhams, respectively.

The UAE tapped into 30 new export and re-export markets in 2020, when global supply chains broke down due to the coronavirus pandemic. For the whole year, the UAE brought total global export markets to 230, the centre said.

According to the FCSC's figures, despite the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the value of UAE’s export was around 460 billion dirhams during the first nine months of 2020.

(Writing by Brinda Darasha; editing by Cleofe Maceda)

brinda.darasha@refinitiv.com

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