UAE Embassy Visits the City of Atlanta, Georgia to Promote Increased Partnership and Trade
Diplomats from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Embassy in Washington, DC, recently returned from Atlanta, Georgia where they met with government, business and community leaders to explore areas for future collaboration and highlight the growing bilateral UAE-US trade relationship.
The UAE has one of its fastest growing trade relationships in the US with Georgia. The state ranks eighth among US states exporting merchandise to the UAE. In 2013, total Georgia merchandise exports to the UAE were valued at $790 million, a 95 percent increase since 1999. Top exports from Georgia to the UAE included passenger vehicles, aerospace, turbojet parts, and generators. Exports to the UAE alone support employment of over 6,888 individuals in Georgia. The port of Savannah handled nearly $1.2 billion in trade with the UAE in 2013, and is ranked 6th largest US port for trade with the UAE.
While in Atlanta, the diplomats met with senior leadership from the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the Mayor’s Office and Invest Atlanta to learn more about state and local sustainability initiatives and the potential for future collaboration between the city of Atlanta and the UAE. The diplomats also briefed approximately 100 students and faculty at Grady High School on the UAE’s economic diversification plan and the prominent roles of Emirati women in government, business and society.
The diplomats learned about best practices to promote entrepreneurship and create successful startups from leaders of various centers for innovation that included the Global Center for Medical Innovation and Georgia Institute of Technology’s Advanced Technology Development Center, Flashpoint and VentureLab. They were also welcomed by leadership at the Carter Center, where they received a tour and discussed the long-standing relationship between the UAE and the Atlanta-based organization.
“Georgia and the UAE share a multifaceted and rising commercial and cultural relationship,” said Yousef Al Otaiba, UAE Ambassador to the US, “visits like this highlight and inform Americans across the US of the burgeoning US-UAE bilateral relationship.”
Organized in coordination with the World Trade Center Atlanta, the trip also included a series of events with executives from the aviation, healthcare, logistics and communications industries, as well as an evening reception honoring the diplomats and highlighting the growing trade and economic ties between the UAE and US.
The travel to Atlanta is part of the UAE Embassy’s ongoing effort to raise awareness among Americans of the deep UAE-US bilateral relationship. UAE Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba and Embassy diplomats plan to tour several additional US cities this year.
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Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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