Israel opens its embassy in Bahrain + UAE to finalize CEPA with Vietnam this year

Israel opens embassy in Bahrain to mark closer ties: Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen headed a delegation of businessmen and public officials at the official opening of the country’s embassy in Manama, Bahrain on Monday, three years after the countries agreed to normalize ties, Reuters reports. “The [Bahrain] foreign minister and I agreed that we should work together to increase the number of direct flights, the tourism, the trade volume, the investments," Cohen reportedly said at the event.

The UAE is set to finalize a CEPA with Vietnam this year, WAM reports, citing Vietnamese Ambassador to the UAE Nguyen Manh Tuan. “Vietnam and the UAE are accelerating the negotiation of CEPA, which shall give great impetus to two-way trade between the two countries,” Tuan added. The pair had signed a joint declaration of intent to begin talks on a CEPA agreement back in April, before launching negotiations in June.