Dubai 2011: UK building stronger bonds in Gulf

Above: Eurofighter Typhoon in action at the show

The UK has a major pavilion at the show and a UK Trade and Industry spokesman described the significance of the regional relationships.

“When the new coalition government came to power it established a new National Security Council, one of whose first tasks was to assess where the UK wanted to deepen and broaden its relationships – and the Gulf States leapt out,” he explained.

“A Gulf Initiative was commissioned, aiming to develop and broaden relationships across the board – including foreign policy, security, energy, health and tourism as well as defence.

"The Prime Minister’s first overseas visits were to the Gulf region, and Her Majesty the Queen made a state visit to the UAE and Oman.”

There is a growing trend towards partnerships with local companies, rather than simply selling products and services into the region, and the UK hopes that the combination of British know-how and the UAE’s connections and ability to invest in R&D will create a force to be reckoned with, able to sell to third-party countries.

The UK’s ability to offer broad-based partnerships, in areas like security, ICT, and health is felt to offer a real advantage as a back-up to aerospace and defence offerings, promising the kind of useful offset work and technology transfer that the region is hungry for.