Six months into 2026, the UAE has come within striking distance of a trade milestone that used to take a full year to reach, a shift officials attribute less to oil price swings than to a decade-long bet on free trade agreements now paying out.
Table of Contents
- The Headline Numbers
- Exports Outpacing Overall Trade
- The CEPA Engine
- Gold and the Top Commodities
- China and the Largest Trading Partners
- From $1 Trillion to Near Dh2 Trillion in Six Months
- Why Officials Are Framing This as Historic
- The Wider Economic Picture
- Law and Legal Implications
- Investigation: What Remains Unresolved
The Headline Numbers
The UAE’s non-oil foreign trade reached Dh1.937 trillion in the first half of 2026, coming within reach of the Dh2 trillion mark for the first time in a six-month period. His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, announced the figures in a post on social platform X, describing the first-half performance as historic and noting that non-oil foreign trade grew 13.1 percent year on year.
Sheikh Mohammed framed the data as more than statistics, writing that the figures reflect the strength of the economy, the effectiveness of the country’s development choices, and the world’s confidence in the UAE.
Exports Outpacing Overall Trade
Non-oil exports rose 23.9 percent year on year to a record Dh452.8 billion, a growth rate nearly double the pace of overall non-oil trade. That surge raised exports’ share of total non-oil foreign trade to 23.4 percent, up from 21.3 percent in the same period of 2025, 18.4 percent in 2024, and 16.9 percent in 2023, a steady climb that officials point to as evidence the economy is shifting toward production and value-added output rather than relying solely on re-export and import volume.
The CEPA Engine
Trade with countries covered by the UAE’s Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements reached Dh304.3 billion in the first half of 2026, made up of Dh193.5 billion in imports and Dh66.1 billion in non-oil exports. Non-oil exports now represent 21.7 percent of the UAE’s total trade with CEPA partner countries, up from 19.1 percent in 2022, a gain officials say reflects the market access these agreements are delivering for UAE companies.
The UAE has concluded 37 CEPAs to date, with 18 currently in force, including recent agreements with Ukraine, effective July 1, 2026, and earlier deals with Jordan, Chile, the Philippines, and Nigeria. The Ukraine CEPA alone is projected to add $369 million to the UAE’s GDP and $874 million to Ukraine’s by 2031, eliminating duties on 99 percent of Ukrainian imports of UAE goods and 97 percent of Ukraine’s exports to the Emirates.
Gold and the Top Commodities
Gold remained the UAE’s largest non-oil traded commodity, reaching Dh706.2 billion in the first half of 2026, up 48.8 percent year on year. The ten leading commodities together accounted for roughly 67 percent of the UAE’s total non-oil merchandise trade during the period, underscoring how concentrated the country’s trade composition remains even as overall volumes diversify across more trading partners.
China and the Largest Trading Partners
China remained the UAE’s largest non-oil trading partner, with bilateral trade valued at Dh180.7 billion. Egypt, Oman, and Hong Kong also recorded notable growth among major partners. Trade with the UAE’s ten largest trading partners grew 12.6 percent, slightly behind the 13.6 percent growth recorded with the rest of the world, suggesting the UAE’s trade expansion is broadening beyond its traditional core partners rather than deepening concentration among them.
From $1 Trillion to Near Dh2 Trillion in Six Months
The first-half 2026 figures build directly on a full-year 2025 in which UAE non-oil foreign trade surpassed $1 trillion, or roughly Dh3.8 trillion, for the first time, growing 26 to 27 percent over the prior year according to different official accounts. First-half 2026 trade of Dh1.937 trillion compares to Dh1.728 trillion in the same period of 2025, meaning the UAE has already banked more than half of its entire 2025 non-oil trade volume within six months, at a growth rate consistent with the prior year’s trajectory.
Why Officials Are Framing This as Historic
Officials at the Ministry of Foreign Trade have repeatedly tied the trade growth to the CEPA programme’s expansion, noting the agreements now target a combined market of roughly 3 billion people. Under-Secretary Fahad Al Gergawi has said the UAE’s non-hydrocarbon growth, spanning logistics, technology, tourism, and financial services, reflects a deliberate government strategy rather than incidental commodity price movements, a distinction officials are keen to draw given that oil-driven growth is more exposed to global price volatility.
The Wider Economic Picture
The trade data arrives alongside other UAE economic records reported the same week, including Dubai’s diamond trade breaking a 14-year record and Dubai Financial Market’s capitalization exceeding Dh1 trillion. Industrial exports grew 25 percent annually to reach Dh262 billion in 2025, and the In-Country Value programme redirected more than Dh473 billion into the national economy, both cited by officials as evidence that trade growth is translating into domestic industrial capacity rather than remaining purely a re-export phenomenon.
Law and Legal Implications
Each CEPA is a distinct bilateral treaty requiring ratification under the domestic legal processes of both signatory states, meaning the trade gains reported are contingent on continued political stability and treaty compliance in partner countries, a relevant consideration given that one of the UAE’s newest CEPA partners, Ukraine, remains at war. Customs duty elimination schedules embedded in each CEPA also create binding tariff-reduction obligations that expose the UAE to potential trade disputes if partner countries later seek to reimpose duties or non-tariff barriers inconsistent with treaty terms.
Investigation: What Remains Unresolved
It is not yet clear whether the UAE will cross the full Dh2 trillion non-oil trade threshold within the six-month period in future reporting cycles, or whether the current growth rate can be sustained as CEPA partner markets mature and early tariff-elimination gains are fully absorbed. The extent to which gold trade, which alone accounts for more than a third of total non-oil trade value, reflects genuine economic diversification rather than price-driven commodity flows has not been independently disaggregated in official reporting. Whether the UAE-Ukraine CEPA’s projected GDP contributions will materialize on schedule given the ongoing war remains an open question. Forensic Times continues to monitor UAE Ministry of Foreign Trade data releases and CEPA implementation progress.
ForensicTimes · forensictimes.com · Global Investigative Journalism on Crime, Justice, and Forensic Science · This report reflects verified open-source and wire reporting current as of publication. © 2026 ForensicTimes. All Rights Reserved.
