Sharjah Update Sharjah business & Investment News from Invest in Sharjah (Sharjah FDI Office)
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The Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq) has concluded a series of high profile meetings with trade and investment organisations in the U.S.A., holding meetings in Washington DC, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The authority was visiting the United States as part of a larger delegation led by the UAE Ministry of Economy.
Shurooq’s delegation included Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi, Chairperson, HE Marwan bin Jassim Al Sarkal, CEO, Saud Meqdad Al Suwaidi, Director of Corporate Services and Elie Jamil Armaly, Director of Business Development. The recent trip was one of a number of trade and investment roadshows that Shurooq has conducted over the past year, such as the authority’s visit to Washington DC in April and its participation in the World Form for Foreign Direct Investment 2014 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in June.
The 2015 World Form for Foreign Direct Investment will take place in Sharjah from 8-10 February, hosted by Shurooq, and drawing investment promotion agencies, corporate decision makers and investment professionals together from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. The event will also mark the first time that the World Form for Foreign Direct Investment has taken place in the Arab world.
During the past two years, Shurooq has signed Memorandums of Understanding aimed at increasing bilateral cooperation between Sharjah and the U.S.A. with the National US Arab Chamber of Commerce, the US Chamber of Commerce, the US-UAE Business Council, and Ex-Im Bank, the Export-Import Bank of the United States. The USA opened a Regional Trade Center (USARTC) in Sharjah in 2012 to encourage bilateral trade.
US-Sharjah bilateral trade stood at US$ 5.46 million in exports, US$ 15.2 million in re-exports, and US$ 726.9 million in 2012 and these figures continue to grow. In 2013 US-UAE bilateral trade amounted to US$ 2.3 billion in exports and 24.5 billion in imports. These figures are projected to increase markedly, as evident from the results of the first two months of 2014 which registered US$ 408 million in exports and US$ 3.5 billion in imports.
Shurooq was recently named FDI Agency of the Year in the MENA region by The European Magazine’s Global Banking and Finance Awards.
Source: Shurooq
