Exceptions include utilities, educational services, medical care and agricultural products, which are subsidized. The UAE began issuing ten-year multiple entry visas to American passport holders in 1994. The U.S. Embassy has received numerous complaints that the UAE Embassy in Washington will not issue 10-year multiple entry visas to U.S. business travelers, even though there is a bilateral agreement on reciprocity. As many business deals involve numerous trips to the UAE over a period of several years, the unavailability of long-term multiple entry visas for U.S. business travelers makes business activities more difficult to conduct. The UAE Federal Government has no official or commercial foreign debt.
Some individual emirates have foreign commercial debts, and there is private external debt.
There are no reliable statistics on either, but the amounts involved are not large. The foreign assets of Abu Dhabi and Dubai governments and their official agencies are believed to be significantly larger than the reserves of the Central Bank. 5. The UAE became a member of the WTO in April 1996. However, the UAE maintains nontariff barriers to trade and investment in the form of restrictive agency, sponsorship, and distributorship requirements. In order to do business in the UAE outside of one of the free zones, a foreign business must have a UAE national sponsor, agent or distributor.