UAE plans new investments in energy and technology in Greece

The UAE plans additional investment in Greece over the next five to eight years, Foreign Trade Minister Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi said in an interview with Emirates News Agency in Athens on 22 October. He named energy, hospitality, artificial intelligence, technology, industry and infrastructure among the areas targeted. The announcement came during Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed’s visit to Greece and meetings with the Greek prime minister.

Al Zeyoudi said 18 government, investment and economic memoranda of understanding with a combined value of €12.7 billion were announced around Investopia Mediterranean and the UAE-Greece Strategic Forum. The stated scope includes Emirati investment in real estate, healthcare, food, renewable energy and AI infrastructure. The combined memorandum value is not equivalent to investment already spent; implementation and financing details would be determined project by project.

The minister said bilateral trade reached about US$300 million in the first half of 2026, up 13% from the corresponding period a year earlier. Greece’s maritime transport capacity and access to Eastern Europe were also cited as advantages for logistics cooperation. The interview described the joint investment initiative as having been launched in 2022 with a value of €4 billion and said it had supported transactions in fields including energy and healthcare.

The plans would expand the existing investment framework and draw on Greece’s energy and logistics position. The report did not specify project timetables, a final allocation of the prospective capital or company-by-company investors. The announcement should therefore be read as a forward-looking plan and a reported memorandum value, not as a tally of completed investment.

A separate WAM report from the same day describes how the forum was structured to turn the announcement into business contacts: it included two panels on resilient food supply chains and partnerships in AI and emerging technologies, plus investment-matching sessions and business-to-business meetings. The Greek foreign ministry’s account identifies three priorities raised by Deputy Foreign Minister Harry Theoharis: energy and connectivity; AI and innovation; and partnerships that also include small firms, start-ups and research centres. The ministry linked that agenda to its 2026–2030 National Strategic Plan for Extroversion.

The Greece announcement therefore contains several different stages of activity: memoranda and commercial partnerships with a combined stated value, an additional UAE investment intention, and bilateral trade already recorded in the first half of 2026. These should not be combined as if all were completed capital expenditure. WAM said the prior UAE investment in Greece was about $4 billion four years earlier and identified completed energy and cross-border-interconnection projects, but gave no project-by-project sums. The new programme’s 5–8 year horizon likewise describes a plan, not a disbursement schedule.