ABU DHABI - Profile - Shaikh Hamdan Bin Zayed.

The next most senior member of the Mohammed group, assembled in what one foreign observer calls "military type command-and-control herarchy", comes Hamdan who has been a UAE deputy prime minister since October 2003 and federal minister of state for foreign affairs for years. Shaikh Hamdan is chairman of DEL.

It was in the latter capacity that Shaikh Hamdan on Sept. 26, 2004, signed with Qatari Minister Attiyah the "International Pipeline Agreement" (IPA). This confirmed DEL as owner and operator of the 440-km, 48-inch marine pipeline from a processing plant at Ras Laffan, the closest Qatari shore from the North Field. The pipeline will run to a landfall at the Taweelah power generating centre on the coast of Abu Dhabi. Taweelah is also the point for a pipeline supplying Abu Dhabi gas to Dubai's Jebel Ali free zone. This will be on stream in late 2006 to supply 2,000 MCF/day of Qatari gas to the UAE (see gmt3AbuDgasExpJan17-05). The pipeline agreement and other matters were approved on Oct. 25 by a UAE cabinet meeting chaired by Shaikh Hamdan Bin Zayed).

Among other positions he holds, Shaikh Hamdan is deputy chairman of Abu Dhabi's Environmental Research & Wildlife Development Agency, which in February 2001 held a conference in Abu Dhabi attended by 19 Arab environment ministers. That meeting adopted a declaration calling for sustainable use of environmental resources in the Arab world. On that occasion, Shaikh Hamdan wrote an article published on Feb.7, 2001, by the International Herald Tribune, in which he warned of the likely consequences of global warming on the Middle East. Among other things, he said: "By the end of this century, we are now told, sea levels could rise by a much as 88 centimeters. This could flood not only coastal areas of the United Arab Emirates but also much of the heavily populated Nile Delta in Egypt and the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates river system in Iraq". On the flaring of natural gas in the UAE, he said: "Our objective is a zero flaring policy".

Now Shaikhs Mohammed, Hamdan, Hamed and other full-brothers are behind UAE efforts to have a free trade pact with the US similar to the one signed recently by Bahrain and one being negotiated by Qatar - a development opposed by Saudi Arabia as such arrangements would weaken the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC). An intimate partnership is developing between the UAE and each of Qatar, Bahrain and Oman - with Bahrain soon to be linked to the Qatari peninsula by a causeway. This is upsetting Saudi Arabia which wants all the six GCC states to become more committed to the council's common market plans than to bilateral arrangements with other powers and markets.

The UAE is also a signatory of the Greater Arab Free Trade Agreement (GAFTA) launched in late 2004. The UAE would have a 53% increase in its trans-border trade with other GAFTA states. The local newspaper Khaleej Times on Jan. 2 quoted the Secretary-General for Economic Affairs of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Taha Al Tayeb Omeir, as saying the emirates would benefit a lot with barriers to invest in other Arab states removed. According to the GAFTA, the UAE, as being the largest Arab re-export centre, would save more than $11.75 bn annually in re-exporting huge quantities of goods to other Arab countries duty free. UAE businessmen will have opportunities to inject more capital into the Arab world, which will help to generate sizable trade between the UAE and other GAFTA members.

The GAFTA came into effect on Jan. 1, 2005, with the elimination of customs duty on inter-Arab trade in a bid to stimulate the region's economy. The GAFTA, including 17 member-states, is expected to attract more than $700 bn in foreign investment into Arab countries in less than three years, said the Khaleej Times. (Hitherto, political rifts, customs barriers and other factors have kept trade among Arab states below 9% of their total trade volume, said the daily, adding that inter-Arab trade is to jump by over 63% in less than three years with the launching of the GAFTA).