China Picks #UAE as Mideast Vaccine Hub to Make Millions of Doses - Bloomberg

China Picks UAE as Mideast Vaccine Hub to Make Millions of Doses - Bloomberg

China is partnering with the United Arab Emirates to make millions of doses of its state-backed Sinopharm vaccine, in a deal that takes manufacturing of the shot overseas for the first time and deepens Beijing’s influence in the Middle East.

A newly-created joint venture between Sinopharm CNBG and Abu Dhabi-based G42 aims to produce up to 200 million doses annually at a new plant that will become operational this year, the companies said in a statement. Production on a smaller scale has already started at an existing Gulf Pharmaceutical Industries PSC plant with a capacity of 2 million doses per month.

With the accord, the UAE becomes the first nation in the U.S-allied Gulf to set up a coronavirus vaccine production facility, boosting its efforts to become a supply hub to the Middle East and beyond. G42, which describes itself as an artificial intelligence and cloud computing firm, had helped roll out trials of the Sinopharm vaccine in the country last year.

The UAE has since overseen one of the world’s fastest inoculation drives, with most people having received the Chinese vaccine. The locally-made vaccine will be called Hayat-Vax -- Hayat being the Arabic word for life -- and is the same as the Sinopharm shot that was approved in the UAE last year.