China and India replaced long- standing Western suppliers of goods to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to become the dominant exporters to the Gulf nation, accounting for nearly a quarter of its total imports last year, the Emirates Business 24/7 website reported Wednesday.

India exported a record high 61.5 billion dirhams (about 16.7 billion dollars) worth of goods to the UAE in 2009, accounting for around 13.7 percent of the country's total imports, the report said, citing figures by the National Bureau of Statistics of the Economy Ministry.

The figures showed that China's exports to the UAE stood at 47. 8 billion dirhams (about 13 billion dollars) last year, constituting around 10.7 percent of the country's total imports of 447.3 billion dirhams (about 121.8 billion dollars).

Taken together, exports by India and China to the UAE totaled around 109.3 billion dirhams (29.7 billion dollars) in 2009, accounting for nearly 24.5 percent of the country's total imports, the report said.

Both countries had been small exporters to the UAE compared with such major industrial powers as Japan, the United States and the European Union during the 1990s before they overtook them and became the top exporters to the country, the second largest Arab economy and one of the top 20 global importers.

The surge was a result of an aggressive marketing blitz by India and China, the competitive price of their products, proximity to the region, their strong political relationship, and persistent volatility in the bill of imports from key Western economies because of the peg between Gulf currencies and the U.S. dollar, the report said.

As for re-exports, the figures showed that Iran remained the largest market for re-exported products from the UAE, mostly from Dubai, with a value of around 25.9 billion dirhams (about 7.05 billion dollars) in 2009, accounting for 17.6 percent of the UAE's total non-oil re-exports of 147 billion dirhams (about 40.05 billion dollars).

According to the Cairo-based Arab League, the UAE became the largest trading hub in the region in 2009 after overtaking Saudi Arabia. Dubai, the country's business capital, has also maintained its position as the Middle East's transshipment center, handling over a fifth of the Gulf region's non-oil trade.