A trade agreement between the UAE and the five-nation Eurasian Economic Union — Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan — entered into force on October 6, eliminating or reducing tariffs across 85% of tariff lines and covering 95% of bilateral trade by value.

Non-oil trade between the UAE and the EAEU reached more than $33.3 billion in 2025, up 15% on the previous year. The Eurasian Economic Commission expects the agreement to add at least $5–6 billion annually to that figure.

"The agreement has an asymmetric effect on the two sides' tariff commitments. For the UAE, it mainly expands the range of goods traded duty-free, while for the EAEU the main effect is lower tariffs," the Russia-UAE Business Council said, adding that for established trade flows, the deal would make it easier for companies to bring new products to market.

The asymmetry reflects the two sides' starting positions. UAE import tariffs are generally low, with most goods subject to rates of 0% or 5%. EAEU tariffs can reach 80% on some product lines, meaning the cuts represent a more substantial change for exporters selling into the bloc. Russia's Resource Agribusiness Group noted that the UAE's existing 5% tariff on crude sunflower oil from the EAEU will fall to zero in the first year.

For UAE-based manufacturers, lower EAEU tariffs open a new incentive to produce or process goods in the Emirates for export into the bloc. Abu Dhabi coffee producer Maatouk 1960 Factory, which imports green beans from Latin America, Africa and Asia and packages them as UAE-origin products, plans to begin shipments to the EAEU in the first quarter of 2027.

The agreement also raises concerns in some EAEU industries. The Russian jewellery sector faces the prospect of gold and silver jewellery from the UAE — currently subject to a 10% import duty — entering at zero tariff once the deal takes effect. Questions have been raised about whether goods from third countries such as China or India could be routed through the UAE to benefit from the preferential rate after simple repackaging.

Serafima Pankratova, counsel at Balayan Group, a Moscow-based law firm, said the main legal challenge would be proving the origin of goods. Customs authorities may also verify eligibility for preferential treatment after clearance and recover duties if origin requirements are not met, she said. Dmitry Antonov, senior vice-president of Resource, cautioned that tariff reductions alone would not be sufficient, pointing to product approvals, certification, logistics and local distribution as core requirements for sustainable trade.

The deal aligns with Dubai's D33 economic agenda, which aims to more than double manufacturing value added by 2033, and with the UAE's broader strategy of using its expanding trade agreement network to attract manufacturing and processing activity. Although the full impact will take time to materialise, the agreement is expected to shift how companies structure supply chains between the two markets.

The Government of Maldives and Abu Dhabi-based developer Eagle Hills have signed a commercial terms agreement for a $12 billion integrated waterfront and marina development in the Ras Malé area, in what would be the largest single foreign investment in the country's history.

The agreement, announced on September 21, sets out the shared vision and principal commercial terms for the Maldives Waterfront and Marina project, with detailed terms to be finalised as development progresses across multiple phases.

"For the Maldives, this is the largest investment programme in our history — billions of dollars of foreign investment moving through our banking system, creating jobs, homes for Maldivian families, and direct revenue to the State from every sale, achieved without tax giveaways and without government borrowing," said Dr. Abdulla Muththalib, Minister of Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development.

The development is planned for reclaimed land in the Ras Malé area and will include hotels and resorts, premium and branded residences, a marina, waterfront promenades, retail, dining, wellness, entertainment, education, healthcare and community infrastructure. Properties will be offered under a leasehold framework of up to 99 years, with the term renewed upon each transfer through sale or inheritance.

Eagle Hills chairman Mohamed Alabbar said the project would build on the Maldives' existing international appeal. "Our ambition is to build responsibly on that strength and create something world-class," he said.

The project is expected to generate tax revenues, stimulate demand across hospitality, construction, retail and marine services, and create direct and indirect employment. Eagle Hills has committed to no further dredging beyond the existing reclaimed land, with independent marine monitoring to accompany construction throughout.

Dr. Muththalib said the development was designed to establish real estate as a structural pillar of the Maldivian economy alongside tourism. "It is a decisive step on our path to becoming a high-income country by 2040," he said.

Korea signed several agreements and memorandums of understanding (MOU) with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan spanning energy, investment, security and cultural cooperation.

Korea and Kyrgyzstan signed 18 agreements, covering critical minerals, halal markets, infrastructure development, livestock technology, energy and intellectual property, The Korean Times has reported. 

The two countries also agreed to cooperate in culture and sports,

Kyrgyzstan's President Sadyr Japarov said Korea is regarded as a key partner in the Asia-Pacific region.

"There are no major differences in political views between our two countries, and we hold similar positions on international and regional affair."

Meanwhile, Korean President Lee Jae Myung and Tajikistan's premier Emomali Rahmon signed 17 pacts in Seoul this week, aiming to expand textile, chemical and machinery exports and cooperate on artificial intelligence (AI), digital industries, critical minerals and the green transition. 

The agreements will facilitate deepening ties in railways, transportation and logistics, as well as intellectual property, energy and industrial safety.

Korea aims to bolster customs and police cooperation against transnational crime with both Central Asian countries.

"Korea and Tajikistan have steadily developed cooperation since 1992, and I find it deeply meaningful that this visit has allowed our two countries to establish a comprehensive partnership," Lee said.

 "I hope the two countries will expand mutually beneficial cooperation in railways, critical minerals, digital technology and other areas going forward."

Overland trade through the Hatta Customs Crossing between the UAE and Oman surged 175% in value in the first half of 2026, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz pushed exporters and logistics companies to shift cargo to land routes.

The number of loaded trucks crossing the checkpoint rose 160% year on year to 109,000 between January and June, up from 42,000 in the same period last year, according to the Dubai Media Office.

Almost one million people crossed the checkpoint in the first half of the year, with transiting buses up 78% and 322,000 light vehicles recorded.

Dubai Customs launched a Green Corridor initiative following the outbreak of the US-Iran conflict on February 28 to help sustain regional and international trade flows and support market stability as key shipping routes came under pressure.

The land route shift is driving broader infrastructure investment. Oman is accelerating construction of a OMR1 billion ($2.6 billion) road network proposed before the war, as it moves to strengthen its position as a Gulf logistics hub.

Trucking companies across the GCC have also scaled up capacity — Saudi-based Flow Progressive Logistics nearly doubled its fleet from around 340 trailers before the conflict to more than 500.

The conflict has intensified this month, with the US and Iran targeting tankers in the strait, keeping pressure on alternative overland and coastal trade corridors.

LEAP 2026, held August 31–September 3 in Riyadh and organized by Tahaluf under the theme "Into New Worlds," closed with over $15 billion in investments and partnerships, a sign Saudi Arabia is moving from tech showcase to tech builder. The fifth edition drew over 1,500 exhibitors from 72 countries, 1,323 speakers, and 1,397 investors from 1,027 firms managing $18.3 trillion in assets.

Scale, stakes, and strategy
Opening-day attendance alone included 1,289 investors from 1,016 firms representing $14.5 trillion in assets, a figure that grew by the final day.Communications Minister Abdullah Alswaha called it "the largest technology movement of the 21st century," citing over $44 billion in investment across LEAP's first four Riyadh editions.

Since LEAP's debut in 2022, Saudi Arabia's digital economy has grown from $118 billion to $199 billion, a 69% increase, with women now making up 36% of the tech workforce.

HUMAIN, the Public Investment Fund-backed AI company, anchored nearly every major deal: a $5 billion joint pledge with AWS for an "AWS HUMAIN AI Zone," one of AMD's largest inference clusters outside the US, and deepened ties with Microsoft and Cisco. xAI announced a Saudi data center starting at 50 megawatts and scaling toward 500 MW, part of the push for sovereign compute capacity.

Arabic AI takes the lead
The most closely watched unveiling was HUMAIN M3, a frontier Arabic-language model commissioned by HUMAIN and built by MiniMax on the MiniMax-M3 lineage: a 428-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model pre-trained on over one trillion Arabic-native tokens, scoring 89.37% across seven public Arabic benchmarks, the highest among frontier models tested. HUMAIN made it available in research preview via HUMAIN Node ahead of a planned open-weight release.

The company also introduced HUMAIN Voice, a conversational platform for Saudi, Maghrebi, Egyptian, and Levantine dialects and a bet that Arab AI adoption will not run on English-first models retrofitted for Arabic. It integrated HUMAIN ONE with Microsoft 365, targeting a million users across the Middle East and Africa, and partnered with Applied Intuition on autonomous trucking, aiming to deploy thousands of self-driving vehicles on Saudi logistics routes by 2030.
 

Infrastructure, power, and localization
Al Moammar Information Systems (MIS) committed $1.2 billion to expand data-center capacity; NHC Innovation added $800 million to the Khuzam Digital Valley. Adobe pledged over $4 billion to a creative-industries partnership, including 12 months of free access to Firefly Standard and Express Premium for over 27 million eligible Saudi residents, plus a Firefly Foundry model built for Saudi culture and Arabic prompts. Microsoft's Azure region goes live in November 2026, AWS's in December.

None of it works without power. Saudi Energy signed agreements at LEAP to supply it: National Grid SA will electrify a HUMAIN data center in Riyadh, and Saudi Electricity's PDC arm partnered with center3 and Huawei on future data-center, energy, and AI-facility projects. These rarely make headlines alongside AI announcements, but they underpin the larger compute build-out.

AMD, Cisco, and HUMAIN switched on AMD's largest active inference cluster outside the US, running Instinct MI355X GPUs over Cisco Silicon One networking. HUMAIN plans to deploy 13,000 AMD GPUs this year, add up to 250 MW from 2027, and reach 1 GW by 2030 as a joint venture. It also launched an NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra (HGX B300) AI cloud, already at roughly 1.1 MW and over 90% utilization, targeting about 35 MW by mid-2027.

Regional participation and sector breadth
Pakistan fielded a pavilion of 20 companies via the Pakistan Software Export Board and TDAP, with over 100 Pakistani companies and nearly 1,000 delegates taking part overall, spanning sectors from real estate and logistics to enterprise tech. Oman fielded 24 companies showcasing services, reflecting broader MENA engagement.
The event also spotlighted telecom, gaming, cybersecurity, and skills initiatives matched to labor market needs, while HUMAIN's partnership with France's Mistral AI signaled expanding international AI alliances.

Startups, prizes, and the next frontier
Over 3,000 applicants entered the Rocket Fuel pitch competition, and 100 finalists competed for a $1 million prize pool. Waspito, a Cameroon-based AI healthcare company, took the $250,000 grand prize (the LEAP Award), with five other finalists splitting the remainder. The newly launched AIMAGINEX initiative, a $104 million hub for AI-powered immersive media backed by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Nourah Cloud, and SeeCubic, signaled where Saudi Arabia wants its next tech investment to land.

What's next?
A sixth edition is set for April 12-15, 2027, with 653 startups already signed up to pitch before the doors open.Tahaluf co-creator Mike Champion framed the week's ambition plainly: "deepening its international reach, creating greater opportunities for companies and founders to access capital and new markets."