Cuba and the United Arab Emirates
Cuba and the United Arab Emirates
A recent and important friendship
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) played an important leadership role during its COP28 presidency, culminating in a conference of November 30 to December 12, 2023. The UAE forged a consensus agreement on a foundation of extensive engagement with the developing countries, an agreement that begins implementation of the demand of the Global South for greater responsibility by the advanced economies in addressing the costs of environmental damage and climate change.
“COP28 delivers historic consensus in Dubai: Recognizing the claims of the Global South,” December 15, 2023
The United Arab Emirates returns to center stage with its hosting of the World Governments Summit on February 12-14, 2024, promoting a dialogue across ideologies, cultures, and civilizations in the appropriation of advanced technologies by governments, so that they can more effectively attain their development and modernization goals.
“Cuba and the World Governments Summit 2024: The sharing of insights and tech gains across cultures and ideologies,” February 16, 2024
The UAE and other Arab Gulf states are developing economic relations with China, thus participating in the construction of an alternative world-system, characterized by cooperation among nations, mutually beneficial trade, and common science-based development.
“China and the Arab world: The land of the Prophet embraces the wisdom of the East,” December 13, 2022
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Cuba deepens relations with the United Arab Emirates
Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz arrived in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on February 11, 2024, to participate in the World Governments Summit and to follow-up on the agreements signed by Cuba and the UAE in December 2023. Hazaa Ahmed Khamis Al Kaabi, the UAE Ambassador to Cuba, who was among those to receive Marrero Cruz upon his arrival, observed that the meetings are designed to ensure rapid movement on the agreements. The UAE Ambassador noted that the relations between Cuba and the United Arab Emirates are recently establish but intense, with projects unfolding in renewable energy, food, the sugar industry, and others.
On February 12, Marrero Cruz met with Sultán Ahmed Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technologies of the United Arab Emirates. The Minister explained that the UAE, through its sponsorship of the annual World Governments Summit, seeks to improve global solidarity among governments for the betterment of humanity. He noted that the visit of the Cuban Prime Minister ensures that the agreements signed by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel in December 2023 will progress in an accelerated manner. These agreements, he noted, are significant for deepening economic, commercial, and financial relations and for cooperation in strategic fields. Al Jabar declared that the relations between the two countries are proceeding on a base of trust, mutual respect, security, and honesty.
Marrero Cruz also met with Omar bin Sultán Al Olama, State Minister of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications of the United Arab Emirates. The Cuban Prime Minister noted that these fields of new technology are very important, and Cuba gives much attention to them, in spite of being an underdeveloped country.
Marrero Cruz sustained conversations on February 14 with His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai, and His Highness Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice-President, Vice Prime Minister, and Minister of the Presidency of the United Arab Emirates. Both Emirati authorities spoke of the potential of relations with Cuba and reaffirmed the commitment of UAE to strengthen cooperative economic, commercial, and financial relations. They noted that agreements have been signed in the areas of tourism, agriculture, biotechnology, and renewable energy, and they are being implemented in a rapid manner. They expressed a high priority for signing new agreements that would facilitate the continuation of the consolidation of the alliance.
On February 13, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the two countries, committing the two governments to collaborative activities in the improvement of governmental institutions, which was a central theme of the World Governments Summit. The agreement was signed by the Cuban Prime Minister and by Mohammad Bin Abdullah Al Gergawi, Minister of Governmental Affairs of the UAE, in a ceremony presided by UAE Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid. Participating in the ceremony were representatives of the Cuban ministries of Science, Technology, and Environment; of Foreign Commerce and Investment; and of Foreign Relations.
On the evening of February 14, the Cuban Prime Minister met with businesspersons with an interest in investment in Cuba and in developing commercial relations. He pointed out the opportunities for investment in tourism, in that Cuba has a well-developed tourist infrastructure, in accordance with international standards of tourism. Following the meeting, Eduardo Martínez Díaz, Cuban Minister of Science, Technology, and Environment, signed an agreement with two companies of the United Arab Emirates that are interested in marketing Cuban products of biotechnology. Heberprot-P and Melagenina will be the first Cuban medicines to be commercialized in the Arab nation under the agreement.
On February 15, the Cuban Prime Minister visited Masdar, the first city in the world free of carbon emissions, located in an area that was desert a few years ago. The city of 5,000 persons was born in 2008, and it is a living residential ecological experiment, based on economic, social, and environmental sustainability. The buildings integrate traditional Arab architectural techniques with modern technologies of construction, designed to capture prevailing winds. The city offers open public spaces, cooled in a natural form. The building consumes up to 40% less energy and water than conventionally designed buildings.
In Masdar is found the Muhamed bin Sayed University of Artificial Intelligence. In an interchange with Sultán Al Hajji, Vice-President of Public Affairs and International Relations of the University, Marrero Cruz expressed the possibility of an academic exchange with universities in Cuba. He expressed Cuba’s interest in developing the benefits of artificial intelligence for countries in development, under the guidance of ethical principles.
Cuba and the United Arab Emirates established diplomatic relations on March 18, 2003. Their mutual commitment today to deepen economic relations is consistent with current global tendencies toward implementation in practice of the principle of South-South cooperation, first formulated and reiterated by the Third World project from the 1950s to the 1970s.
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What are the United Arab Emirates?
What is this small nation that has emerged recently to play a world leadership role with respect to the environment and good government and that now seeks to deepen relations with revolutionary Cuba?
From 1820 to 1971, the territory pertained to the Trucial States, so-called because the sheikhdoms had signed truces or treaties with the British, in which they committed to not attack British merchant ships and to not make commercial arrangements with any other power without British permission, and the British committed to protection from any act of aggression by sea or land. The first treaty was signed in 1820, following successful British military campaigns in 1809 and 1819, through which Britain attained control of the region. The Treaty was updated in 1843, 1853, and 1892, this last establishing the Trucial States as a British Protectorate.
The pearling industry was central to the economy of the region in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, the industry was ruined by the development of the cultured pearl industry in the 1930s.
Explorations by British companies for oil in the territory began in the 1930s. The Persian Gulf sheikdoms lacked the capital and the technology to undertake the exploration, and under the terms of the treaties of protection, Britain had a de facto monopoly on the exploitation of oil in the territory. British and joint British-French exploration and drilling led to the first oil revenues in the 1960s.
The sheiks (rulers) were aware of the revenues from oil, having observed it in surrounding countries. Therefore, the concessions signed with the foreign companies included significant income for the Persian Gulf states, revenue that was used by the states to promote socioeconomic development. During the 1960s, Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the Ruler of the Abu Dhabi Emirate, used oil revenues to finance a massive construction program in schools, housing, hospitals, and roads. In the Dubai Emirate, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum invested oil revenues in financing diversification of the economy, which led to the development of Dubai into a modern city.
Having established control of the oil resources in the Persian Gulf region, the British had little economic incentive to maintain the British protectorate, and its coercive economic terms were inconsistent with the ideology of the neocolonial world order. Great Britain announced the termination of the arrangement on January 24, 1968, and the treaty between the British and the Trucial Sheikdoms expired on December 1, 1971.
On December 2, 1971, six of the emirates (Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ajman, Fujairah, Sharjah and Umm Al Quwain) agreed to form a federation, the United Arab Emirates. A seventh emirate, Ras al-Khaimah, joined the federation on January 10, 1972.
Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the Ruler of Abi Dhabi, was the key force in forging the union, and he is considered the founding father of the nation. He was the first President of the UAE, and he served in that capacity until his death on November 2, 2004. Shiekh Zayad Mosque, named in his memory, is the largest mosque in the nation. The UAE was also led during this period by the Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who died in January 2006.
The United Arab Emirates is a federal constitutional monarchy consisting of seven hereditary monarchies, in which the monarchs are known by custom in Arabia as sheiks, which means leader, elder, or chief. The President and the Prime Minister are elected by a Federal Supreme Council made up of the ruling sheiks of the seven emirates. By custom, the Head of the Al Nahyan family based in Abi Dhabi is elected president; and the Head of the Al Maktoum family, based in Dubai, is elected Prime Minister, who usually also serves as Vice-President. More than two-thirds of the population live in the emirates of Abi Dhabi and Dubai; Abi Dhabi is the capital, and Dubai is the largest city.
The Prime Minister appoints the members of the Council of Ministers, which is the executive branch. The Federal National Council is the legislative branch; half of its members are appointed by the rulers of the emirates, and half are elected by the people. According to the Constitution, all powers not granted to the federal government are reserved to the individual emirates. Both the executive and legislative councils have attained gender parity, which is stipulated as a requirement by law.
Islam is the official religion; Muslims comprise 76% of the population. Sharia courts have jurisdiction with respect to family law, while civil courts have jurisdiction with respect to all other legal matters. Christians comprise 9% of the population; Hindus, 6%; and others, 8%.
The UAE maintains diplomatic relations with most countries in the world. It is a member of various international agencies, including the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. It is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and a founding member of the Gulf Cooperation Council. It maintains strong ties with China, Russia, and the United States. It normalized relations with Israel in 2020. The development of its military forces has been dependent on relations with the United Kingdom, the United States, and France. As noted above, these extensive international relations have recently evolved toward leadership with respect to the environment and science-based governance in cooperation with China.
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Diversification and modernization of the economy
Since becoming independent, the United Arab Emirates has become one of the world’s wealthiest nations, with one of the highest GDP (PPP) per capita in the world. Its economy has grown nearly 231 times since 1971. And non-oil commerce has grown 28 times since 1981. It has used oil revenues wisely, combining strong state direction with a market economy, directing investments toward the diversification of the economy.
The Indian economist Aradhana Talwar has written that “since the oil discovery in 1962, the UAE has relied majorly on oil imports and exports, which has charted the economic growth. In the past few decades, the country has experienced consistent and impressive economic progress, thereby making it the second largest economy in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Today, there are various sectors and areas that drive the economic success story of the UAE, namely oil, natural gas, tourism, manufacturing, real estate, services, construction, banking, etc.”1
Initially, the economist noted, “oil revenues were utilized by former UAE President Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan to build and expand roads, housing, schools, health infrastructure and construction sectors of the country.” Subsequently, investment in non-oil sectors led to diversification of the economy, such that by 2020 oil accounted for 29% of the country’s GDP. The non-oil sectors include agriculture, construction, tourism, real estate, trade, services, transport, and industry. The plan devised by the government intends the expansion of the non-oil economy in order to satisfy the needs of the population and to ensure sustainable development, by reducing dependency on a single export. In Dubai, former UAE Vice-President Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum stressed the investment of oil revenue into the creation of a modern city and a global financial center.
Diversification of the economy has meant a shift from a labor-intensive economy to an “innovative, knowledge-based, skilled labour and technology driven economy,” Talwar observes. This has been accomplished by investments in tourism, aviation, telecommunication, aluminum production, heavy industry, information technology, and space along with oil and natural gas reserves. These investments have been put forth in development plans formulated by the federal government as well as by the emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. These plans include possibilities for 100% foreign ownership of firms in certain sectors, such as renewable energy and manufacturing.
In a similar vein, Saima Shadab observes that the Persian Gulf oil-dependent countries have developed policies that promote the diversification of their economies since the 1980s. They have attempted to diversify their economies through investment in other sectors, such as industry, tourism, sports, and education. Shadab observes that such economic policies are consistent with the findings of studies by economists, which have found that excessive reliance on natural resource rents negatively affects economic growth. These studies emphasize that economic diversification is an essential policy for economic growth, leaving behind the tendency to rely excessively on income generated by oil exports.2
Shadab observes, however, that despite gains toward diversification, the economies of the region remain dependent on oil. Kuwait has the highest dependency on petroleum, with 42.65% of its GDP coming from natural resource rents; Kuwait is followed by Oman (26.67%), Saudi Arabia (24.08%), and Qatar (20.72%). The United Arab Emirates is the most diversified, with 16.17% of its GDP coming from natural resource rents. Moreover, UAE has seen fuel exports as a percentage of all exports decline from 76.28% in 2000 to 31.34% in 2018. Thus, Shadab concludes, the UAE is a model for other countries in the region to follow.
Shadab does not specify how the UAE accomplished this greater level of diversification. However, the analysis confirms, in the first place, that the United Arab Emirates has made progress in diversifying its economy. And in the second place, that all the countries of the region have identified economic diversification as a goal, and all have made some progress in this regard.
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The influx of foreign skilled workers
The six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. They have in common the fact that they began to receive significant revenues from oil in the 1960s, and they became politically independent from the United Kingdom in 1971. During the 1960s and 1970s, they formulated plans to use oil revenues to expand, diversify, and modernize their economies. The increased demand for labor, especially skilled labor, which the countries themselves were not able to supply, gave rise to a steady influx of foreign workers. Initially the foreign workers were from neighboring Arab countries, but by the 1980s and 1990s the migrants were mostly from Southeast Asia.
At the present time, in all six countries of the Gulf Corporation Council, non-nationals comprise a majority of the population. In Bahrain, 77.8% of the population was non-national in 2020; in Kuwait, 84.7%; in Oman, 76.8%; Qatar, 94.8%; and Saudi Arabia, 75.6%. In the case of the United Arab Emirates, 88.6% of the population consists of non-nationals. In the UAE, the majority of non-nationals are from Asia, particularly India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Non-nationals constitute 99.5% of the workforce in the private sector; and 40% of the workforce in the public sector.
The GCC countries have developed systems for the regulation of migrant labor, known as the kafala system. In the case of the United Arab Emirates, the system was incorporated in the 1980 Federal Law on the Regulation of Labour Relations. It established regulations for such issues as severance pay, repatriation pay, annual leave, standards for maximum working hours and working conditions, payment for overtime and the payment for treatment of labor-related injuries. At the same time, the law prohibits labor unions and strikes. Reforms introduced in 2016 established a standard work contract that specifies duration and nature of the work, place of employment, and wages and compensation. Federal laws also stipulate that an employee on a work visa has the right to an annual leave and 45 days maternity leave. Federal law prohibits an employer from confiscating the passport of a worker on a work visa. In addition, alien widows or divorced women whose presence in the country was authorized via her husband’s work status are given a one-year visa to stay in the country without the need for a work permit or sponsor.
As is evident, foreign workers in the United Arab Emirates have rights. In general, all GCC countries grant to migrant workers rights to end of service benefits, health care benefits, maternity leave, sick pay, travel provisions, vacation pay, and work injury benefits. The benefits do not include family health care or pension benefits, because the kafala system is not designed for migration leading to permanent residence and citizenship, but as a work contract for a specified period of time, following which the worker often returns to his or her native country.
The post-1980 migratory wave to the GCC countries is the third migratory wave to the region in recent centuries. The first was prior to the British arrival, during a time in which there was extensive commerce between the Gulf region and Asia and Iran, leading to a significant migration and settlement from Iran and India. The second wave occurred during the period of the British Protectorate, in which there was significant migration from India.
The population of the United Arab Emirates today (citizens and non-national residents) reflects these migratory patterns. Ethnic group distribution of the population is 59.4% South Asian (38.2% Indian, 9.5% Bangladeshi, 9.4% Pakistani, 2.3% other), 11.6% Emirati Arab, 10.2% Egyptian, 6.1% Filipino, and 12.8% other.
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Following a trajectory similar to the United Arab Emirates is the State of Qatar. It has used natural resources revenues to modernize its economy, and it is developing relations with China and Cuba.
“Qatar and Cuba: Deepening relations rooted in mutual respect,” December 8, 2023
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Final considerations
The characteristics of the Arab Gulf states constitute an abnormal development. It is not normal for a nation to be overly dependent on a single highly profitable natural resource exportation; to have a population that consists mostly of professional and skilled workers on work visas from other countries; and to quickly become a wealthy nation on the basis of these characteristics. It is an abnormal development that is a consequence of the dynamics of the capitalist world-economy, driven as it is by the unconstrained pursuit of profit and consumerist production, ravaging the natural resources of the planet without moral considerations.
What can be said with respect to the Muslim peoples of the region? It should be recognized, in the first place, that they were responding to that capitalist world-economy as it came to them during the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Moreover, it can reasonably be said that they have responded in a principled form, consistent with their Islamic principles and with fairness to the rest of the world.
The West does not understand them, just as the West (including most of the Left) does not understand China, Russia, and the Third World, particularly the nations of the Third World, like Iran, the Libya of Qaddafi, Cuba, and Venezuela, which are seeking an autonomous road of development, in accordance with their traditional religious values and/or moral principles. We in the West have a false image of the Arab Gulf states as pre-modern monarchies, authoritarian violators of human rights, fundamentalist adherents of outdated religious concepts, ruled by a wealthy traditionalist elite that deposited a boatload of money in Northern banks (which irresponsibly used them to generate Third World debt), and that have developed strong militaries in alliance with the United States.
But we have not looked at their situation from their point of view. Presented with the fortuitous peculiarity of a profit-inducing natural resource, they have taken it as an opportunity to diversify and modernize their economies. They have done so with a certain precaution, forging alliances with the Western superpower and developing their military forces, knowing from experience that they possess a natural resource that the world covets and will use military means to attain. They have done so with appreciation of the value of their religious and cultural traditions. Ignoring the chorus of human rights denunciations coming from international organizations with a myopic Western vantage point, they have developed political institutions and perspectives with respect to gender, labor, freedom of expression, styles of dress, and norms of consumption that are guided by Islamic principles.
From their peculiar vantage point, they see a new world order emerging, led by China and characterized by cooperation, mutually beneficial trade, and the development of science and technology for the common good. They seek to take advantage of their exceptional situation to make a positive contribution to this emerging world order.
Thus, we see today an emerging global realignment. Governments that have declared for the construction of socialism are allied with states in which Islam is the official religion. States with people’s democracies are allied with monarchies. They stand united with respect to common principles: nations ought to set aside ideological differences in the pursuit of mutually beneficial trade, shared scientific and technological development, and common economic development to enable the protection of socioeconomic rights. They share the belief that no nation ought to be sanctioned for forming alliances and friendships with other nations in the pursuit of its development and modernization goals.
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Talwar, Aradhana. 2022. “From Oil to Diversification of the UAE: An Economic Perspective,” Diplomacy & Beyond Plus (February 17, 2022).
Shadab, S. 2023. “The New Arab Gulf: Evaluating the Success of Economic Diversification in the UAE.” In Rahman, M.M., Al-Azm, A. (eds) Social Change in the Gulf Region. Gulf Studies, vol 8. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7796-1_25