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ABU DHABI / WAM
The UAE-Japan SME Platform was officially inaugurated in Abu Dhabi on Sunday in the presence of Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, UAE Minister of Economy, and Hiroshige Seko, Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry.
The platform will support bilateral efforts to develop the vital small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME), sector. It was formed under the framework of the MoU signed by the UAE Ministry of Economy (MoE), and the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), in January 2017, concerning innovation and SMEs and the
facilitation of communication
and cooperation between the
countries’ entrepreneurs.
The platform was inaugurated by the UAE Minister of Economy, and his Japanese counterpart in the presence of Abdullah Al Saleh, the MoE’s Under-Secretary for Foreign Trade and Industry, Osamu Mizui, Executive Vice President of the Japan External Trade Organization, JETRO, and Masami Ando, Managing Director of JETRO Dubai and MENA. Other senior government officials and entrepreneurs involved in the SME sectors of the UAE and Japan also attended.
Speaking on the occasion, Al Mansouri pointed out that there are more than 450,000 SMEs in the country, and that the national target is to raise the share of SMEs in the gross domestic product of the UAE to 70 percent by 2021.