UAE Minister of Foreign Trade Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi and Canada's Minister of International Trade Maninder Sidhu signed the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement on 27 October 2026 in Ottawa — the UAE's 38th CEPA and the first with a G7 country. Once fully in force, the deal will eliminate or reduce tariffs on more than 99% of current Canadian exports to the Emirates; the two governments expect two-way trade to double from $3.4 billion to $7 billion over the next decade. The agreement is expected to enter into force in 2027.
The ceremony took place during the first-ever visit to Canada by an Abu Dhabi Crown Prince — Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan — and was welcomed by Prime Minister Mark Carney. The text was concluded earlier, in July 2026, after 47 days of talks — the fastest free-trade negotiations on record for either country. The signed document now moves into ratification with a 2027 entry-into-force target.
What was signed, and by whom
CEPA is a broad instrument covering goods, services, investment, government procurement and rules of origin. Per the Canadian release, the priority sector baskets are industrial, agricultural, forest, fish and seafood, environmental and engineering. Canada flags its strongest export lines as pulses, canola, industrial machinery, power generation equipment and aerospace. The UAE Ministry of Foreign Trade lists energy, aerospace, critical minerals and agri-food as priority tracks on its side.
"The CEPA we concluded with the UAE in a record 47 days will double our two-way trade," Maninder Sidhu said after the signing. Mark Carney added a one-line framing: "The UAE and Canada are building big."
What this means for UAE-based business
The practical core is tariffs. Once CEPA runs at customs, over 99% of current Canadian export lines to the UAE will see duties either zeroed or reduced. In 2025 Canada shipped $2.8 billion in goods into the Emirates (+over 10% YoY) against $679.1 million of imports, per the PMO quick-fact sheet — these are the flows that pick up a price advantage first. The two-way trade target is a doubling to $7 billion over ten years.
The counter-flow is the second layer. The UAE announced a $70 billion investment commitment to the Canadian economy in November 2025, prioritising logistics, infrastructure, energy, critical minerals and AI. CEPA turns the commitment into a working legal frame — investor protection, easier profit repatriation, non-discrimination, streamlined business setup procedures. Canada's International Trade Ministry estimates investment at this scale can generate more than 100,000 jobs.
For a company trading through the UAE, this is concrete: Canada stops being an "expensive, far-away" market, tariff and origin-rule logic becomes transparent, and in parallel a counter-channel opens up for incoming investment and industrial partnership. How the CEPA mechanic works for Emirates-based business is laid out in detail in our UAE CEPA programme review.
Strategic Partnership — beyond trade
Alongside CEPA, Ottawa and Abu Dhabi launched a new bilateral framework — a Strategic Partnership. It adds four tracks on top of trade.
- Defence and security. An MoU modernises the existing Defence Cooperation Arrangement: training, defence-policy dialogue, joint exercises, defence industrial cooperation, cyber security, information exchanges. A Joint Military Committee is set up to guide implementation.
- Justice. The two sides launch negotiations on an Extradition Treaty and a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty.
- Transport and logistics. A tripartite MoU between DP World, Arctic Gateway Group and CentrePort Canada connects Canadian Arctic and inland corridors with UAE-operator infrastructure.
- Energy, education, business. A Masdar agreement with Natural Resources Canada on renewables; a diplomatic training MoU with the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy; a business facilitation agreement between Invest in Canada and the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
"Our new Strategic Partnership gives this progress a long-term direction," Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said.
Context: Canada looking beyond the US
The UAE pact sits inside a wider Ottawa trajectory. The US is still Canada's largest trading partner, but 2026 brought a run of tariff frictions. Canada has officially set a goal of doubling non-US exports by 2035 and diversifying inbound investment. For that purpose the UAE is not a US substitute — it is a second working channel that bundles GCC, South Asian and African markets through Emirates free-zone infrastructure.
From the UAE side, Canada is the first G7 country in the CEPA portfolio. That is a reputational signal for Western investors: the programme Abu Dhabi launched in 2021 is moving past emerging-market partners into a fully developed G7 counterpart. On the UAE economy 2026 outlook, the Canada deal fits the non-oil diversification line and the Dh4 trillion non-oil trade target by 2031.
What next: the window to EIF 2027
The agreement now enters ratification. On the UAE side the typical gap between CEPA signing and the preferential regime actually running at customs is 6 to 18 months; Canada should land in the shorter half of that window, because both sides synchronised legal review before signing. For UAE-based business, 2026-27 is the window to map HS codes along the Canada corridor, test rules-of-origin eligibility, and prepare direct-consignment logistics (most CEPAs require shipments without commercial operations in third jurisdictions). Businesses ready on day one capture the margin.
