Duda was hosted by Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in the capital Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Bilateral agreements on renewable energy, digitisation
The Polish president announced afterwards that Poland and the United Arab Emirates had signed framework agreements on bilateral cooperation in the fields of renewable energy and digitisation.
Duda told reporters that his two-day visit to the UEA was "progressing in a very good atmosphere.”
He added: “It is my hope that this visit will bear fruit in the form of many contracts signed here in the future by Polish companies, but above all in the form of a bigger Polish presence in the UEA’s technology, renewables and IT sectors, which are growing exceptionally dynamically.”
Duda also said he hoped that UAE investment funds and renewable energy firms would do business in Poland.
He told reporters: “We are perfectly aware that we need a lot of renewable energy, as part of climate protection policy and efforts to build an energy mix, so this kind of cooperation would definitely be very useful.”
Duda described his talks with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan as “very good” and voiced hope that the signing of the agreements on cooperation in renewables and digitisation would “form the basis for further cooperation."
'We should have a stronger presence in this market'
Duda said that his UAE counterpart signalled a willingness to send “a working group” of officials to Poland to discuss the prospects for cooperation between companies from the two countries.
The president told reporters that trade between Poland and the UAE was around USD 1.4 billion.
He stated: “Hopefully we’ll manage to increase it many times in the coming years. And we agreed with President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan that together we’ll seek to make it happen.”
Duda said there was also potential for closer bilateral cooperation in science and agriculture.
He told reporters: “I’m counting very much simply on the export of our food, of what we produce in Poland, of what our farmers produce, of what our agri-food companies produce. We should have a stronger presence in this market."
The Polish president said his talks in Abu Dhabi also focused on climate issues, ahead of the United Nations' COP28 climate conference, which will take place in Dubai in November and December 2023.
Support for Ukraine
Duda told reporters that he and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan also discussed support for Ukraine amid the continuing Russian invasion.
He said: “We talked about Ukraine. I thanked the UAE’s president for his country’s assistance. The UAE recently provided funding for generators for Ukraine, it’s not a small sum.”
He added that "as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the period 2022-2023, the UAE is also supporting Ukraine politically, while seeking to maintain a calm distance.”
“As a country that used to be on friendly terms with both Russia and Ukraine, the UAE is also making a considerable effort to seek peaceful solutions, by enabling talks on prisoner exchanges,” Duda said, adding that the UAE was playing “an unusual role.”
Tuesday is day 377 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, prezydent.pl