UAE Plans an Additional 15 Billion Euros for Greece as Forum Accords Reach 12.75 Billion Euros

By The Edge Research Team

The UAE intends to invest an additional 15 billion euros in Greece, WAM reported at 15:47 GMT on 22 October, expanding a joint investment initiative launched in May 2022 at 4 billion euros. The new sum is 3.75 times the original envelope on our calculation. Added together, the two announced sums come to 19 billion euros on our calculation. The additional 15 billion euros is a stated intention, not money already invested.

The announcement came during the official visit to Athens of His Highness Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. On the same day the Crown Prince and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis attended the UAE-Greece Strategic Forum. There, 18 memorandums of understanding, agreements and commercial partnerships worth 12.75 billion euros were announced, the Abu Dhabi Media Office said.

A larger envelope, built on a target already passed

The original target has already been passed. Greece’s Prime Minister’s office said the 4 billion euro target for direct investment, set in 2022 under an agreement between the Hellenic Development Bank, the Hellenic Development Bank of Investments and the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund ADQ, has been surpassed. Mitsotakis cited landmark investments by Masdar and by PureHealth.

The announcement itself set no timetable. Later on 22 October, UAE Minister of Foreign Trade Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi said the additional investment would come over the next five to eight years. He named energy, hospitality, artificial intelligence, technology, industry and infrastructure as targets. He gave the sum as 15 billion dollars, while the official announcement put it at 15 billion euros. Neither the announcement nor the minister named an investing entity.

Measured against the Greek economy, the step up is large. Greece’s nominal GDP was 249.73 billion euros in 2025, a provisional figure. On the announcement’s euro figure, the new 15 billion euros equals 6.01 percent of that output on our calculation. Spread evenly over the minister’s five to eight years, it comes to 0.75 to 1.20 percent of 2025 GDP a year, also on our calculation. The original 4 billion euros was 1.93 percent of Greece’s 2022 GDP of 207.02 billion euros on our calculation.

So the planned sum’s weight in the economy is 3.11 times the 2022 level on our calculation. Greek nominal output grew 20.63 percent between 2022 and 2025 on our calculation. These ratios set sums that may be invested over several years against a single year’s output.

The UAE investment plan set against the Greek economy

GDP at current prices from Eurostat; 2025 is provisional. Shares are our calculation and compare potential multi-year investment with one year’s GDP. The 15 billion uses the official announcement’s euro figure; the Minister of Foreign Trade gave it as 15 billion dollars. The forum agreements are memorandums, agreements and commercial partnerships, and were announced separately from the 15 billion euro intention.

In their talks, the two sides discussed expanding the scope of the joint investment initiative.

Energy and healthcare set the template

The completed transactions include deals in energy and healthcare, the UAE announcement said. The two companies named in Athens show the scale.

Masdar completed its purchase of 70 percent of TERNA ENERGY in November 2024 at 20 euros a share. The price valued the Greek company at an enterprise value of 3.2 billion euros, which Masdar said was the largest energy transaction ever on the Athens Stock Exchange. At the time of the deal, TERNA ENERGY operated 1.2 gigawatts and targeted 6 gigawatts by 2029, 5 times that level on our calculation. Masdar’s release also named the 680 megawatt Amfilochia project.

PureHealth completed its purchase of a 60 percent stake in Hellenic Healthcare Group in October 2025. It paid 800 million euros, which the company said implies a 1.3 billion euro equity value for the whole group. The deal brought 11 hospitals and 23 diagnostic centres. They serve more than 1.4 million patients a year.

The forum agreements reach well beyond those two sectors. They cover digital infrastructure, advanced technology, artificial intelligence, renewable energy and clean energy infrastructure, industry, logistics, transport and ports, healthcare, life sciences and food security. Their 12.75 billion euros equal 5.11 percent of Greece’s 2025 GDP on our calculation.

The same day, Presight disclosed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange that Greece’s Ministry of Digital Governance signed a memorandum of understanding with it.

Trade and people flows widen the base

Goods trade is still small next to the investment numbers. Greece’s goods trade with the UAE came to 543.0 million euros in 2025 on our sum of Eurostat data, up 13.98 percent on our calculation. The 15 billion euro intention, a sum meant for several years, is 27.62 times that annual flow on our calculation.

The UAE side drove the rise. UAE goods sold into Greece rose 76.79 percent to 191.2 million euros in 2025, on our calculation. Their share of the two-way flow climbed to 35.21 percent from 22.70 percent on our calculation.

That run has carried into 2026. In the first eight months, Greek imports from the UAE rose 25.20 percent to 162.3 million euros on our calculation. August alone brought 80.85 million euros. That is 49.82 percent of the eight-month total on our calculation. Two-way trade grew 4.76 percent to 366.6 million euros, also on our calculation.

Greek exports to the UAE moved the other way. They were 351.8 million euros in 2025, 4.47 percent lower than in 2024 on our calculation. In the first eight months of 2026 they were 7.26 percent lower, also on our calculation. Greece still ran a goods surplus of 160.6 million euros with the UAE last year on our calculation.

Greece’s goods trade with the UAE, € million

Greece’s own reporting, goods only, in euros. August 2026 is the latest month. Totals are our sum of the unrounded values, so a total can differ by 0.1 from the sum of its rounded parts.

Business and travel links are growing too. Greek companies operating in the UAE rose to 1,483 at the end of September 2026. A year earlier there were 1,244, so the count grew 19.21 percent on our calculation. Greek tourists arriving in the UAE rose 11.38 percent to 72,482 in 2025, also on our calculation. The two countries are linked by 26 weekly flights.

Greek business and travel links with the UAE

Company and tourist counts as published by WAM on 22 October 2026; changes are our calculation.

Why it matters: The UAE is expanding an initiative that has already passed its first 4 billion euro target. The deals completed under it include large energy and healthcare businesses, and the new 15 billion euros builds on them. Al Zeyoudi told the forum that “Greece offers an important gateway to Europe”. For UAE companies, the deals so far are large operating businesses inside the EU, in energy and private healthcare.

Outlook: The next step is turning the 18 forum memorandums, agreements and partnerships into completed transactions of the Masdar and PureHealth kind. Investopia, which met in Athens alongside the visit, holds its next meetings in London in December 2026, followed by Abu Dhabi in March and Milan in April. Monthly EU trade data will show whether UAE sales into Greece keep their 2026 pace. The visit builds on five decades of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Sources: WAM, Abu Dhabi Media Office, Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic, Eurostat, Masdar, PureHealth, Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, The Edge.

Get Complimentary Insights

Follow us