CEPA (Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement)
The Israel-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement. Bilateral free trade agreement signed May 2022, in force April 2023. First FTA between Israel and any Arab state. Eliminates tariffs on 95% of bilateral goods trade.
The Israel-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) is the bilateral free trade agreement signed May 31, 2022 and entered into force April 1, 2023 between the State of Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The CEPA was the first comprehensive free trade agreement between Israel and any Arab state, executed under the 2020 Abraham Accords diplomatic framework. The agreement eliminates or substantially reduces tariffs on more than 95% of goods traded bilaterally and includes chapters on services, investment, government procurement, and intellectual property.
Under CEPA, Israel-UAE bilateral trade grew from $200 million in 2020 to over $3 billion in 2024 — a 15x increase in four years. The agreement is the legal architecture that Olam projects a future Saudi-Israeli normalization would replicate, with Saudi-scale multipliers (2.3x UAE GDP, 3x UAE population, 2.5x sovereign wealth) producing the $650 billion to $1.3 trillion cumulative economic impact modeled in The $1 Trillion Deal.
Full analysis: Israel-UAE: $3.2 Billion and Climbing.