Jordan's state carrier, Royal Jordanian, will resume direct flights to Damascus for the first time in nearly a decade, in the latest step to restore extensive business ties with Syria hurt by the Syrian civil war, government officials said Tuesday.

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The decision to resume flights was part of several taken at a two-day ministerial meeting that ended on Tuesday in Amman to boost bilateral trade, investment, and transport ties.

The kingdom hopes cross-border trade and renewed transport links will help boost its debt-ridden economy, which was hurt by a steep economic contraction last year amid the pandemic.

Syria, which blames crippling Western sanctions on the plight of its economy, hopes wider business links with its southern neighbor will help it recover from the devastating impact of conflict and bring in much-needed foreign currency.

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The United Arab Emirates aims to raise the value of economic activity with Israel to more than $1 trillion in the next 10 years, hoping to work together on everything from healthcare to climate change and energy, the UAE economy minister said.

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The Gulf Arab state has signed dozens of memorandums of understanding with its new ally in the year since it became the first Arab state to normalize ties with Israel this century.

It was not immediately clear how the two countries expect to reach $1 trillion in economic activity in the next decade. Each country has a gross domestic product of roughly $400 billion.

The UAE and Israel have between $600 million and $700 million in bilateral trade, the minister, Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri, told a virtual conference on Monday. Reaching that level in one year was "an achievement by itself," he said.

"We are looking to create over $1 trillion dollars of economic activity over the next decade," he said, adding they are "moving into so many areas of economic opportunities."

Israel says it expects $1 billion in trade with the UAE by end-2021 and $3 billion in three years, far below the UAE's $24 billion of exports in 2019 to its top destination, Saudi Arabia.

"A new window of opportunity has been opened since that agreement, and the economy is changing the face of the region and will offer a diplomatic infrastructure for strengthening ties between us," said Adiv Baruch, chairman of the Israel Export Institute.

Publicly announced deals include around 40 MoUs and around 30 other types of agreements related to the financial, energy, sports, agriculture, aviation, aerospace, and media sectors.

However, a $3 billion fund announced by the United States, Israel. and the UAE on private sector investment and regional cooperation has gone quiet, as has a $10 billion fund of UAE private and state money to invest in Israeli strategic sectors.

Israel's Export Institute and Bank Hapoalim, one of Israel's largest banks, said it planned to send a mission of 250 businessmen and entrepreneurs to Abu Dhabi and Dubai next month.

The mission is aimed at companies designated by the UAE as having the potential for cooperation in high tech, as well as companies in construction, industry, and smart transportation.

Official Israeli data shows Israel-UAE trade in goods was $610 million in the first seven months of 2021, $400 million of which was UAE exports to Israel and half of that was diamonds.

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Through the gate is a demonstration of Israeli agriculture technology put to use in China. The start attraction is a device – from the Israeli company Mottech – that uses automation to calibrate the filtering of water and channeling of fertilizer into the soil. Throughout the park, Chinese and Israeli flags fly side by side.

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The cooperation zone is only a small part of the wide-ranging relations between Israel and China. Two countries which established diplomatic relations only in 1992, and whose trade has grown 2,800%: from $50 million in 1992 to $14 billion in 2018.

For officials at the Yangling Agricultural Hi-Tech Industries Demonstration Zone – China's leading agritech innovation center – the small Israeli-Chinese cooperation park is only the beginning of what they wish to see. On a recent visit by a delegation of Israeli journalists and government spokespersons, officials at the Yangling high-tech zone lobbied for much more.

The officials talked up sister-city deals, an increase in the number of visiting Israeli scholars, and – most of all – a dedicated facility in Israel where rotating groups of Chinese specialists would come to study with Israeli researchers about Israeli technology. Yangling's executives are eager to write the checks.

"We can provide the funding," a Yangling official said while giving the delegation a tour of the Yangling zone, "Israel should just provide the curriculum."

The Yangling cooperation pitch fits in with China's push to become a superpower across the board.

A country that is not only equipped with the best technology in all key fields but which can innovate and then deploy technology both for its own needs and as a Chinese-sponsored export to build soft power abroad is a major goal. And so, at Yangling, a hall holds more than sixty flags, all of developing countries that have sent students to study agritech and bring those lessons home.

Yangling's Chinese-Hebrew gate emblemizes a country that admires the start-up nation so much that it wants to become a start-up nation of its own.

Owen Alterman is the Senior International Affairs Correspondent of the i24NEWS English channel. He participated in the delegation as a guest of the Chinese government.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS. 

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