Etihad Credit Insurance (ECI) has hired Abdulla Al Nuaimi as director of operations and international co-operation, effective immediately.

Al Nuaimi will report to CEO Massimo Falcioni in the newly created role, in which he’ll head up two separate departments at the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE’s) export credit agency.

On the operations front, Al Nuaimi will work to build relationships with corporate customers, meanwhile he’ll also be tasked with developing ECI’s presence abroad as the head of the international cooperation department.

Falcioni tells GTR: “We have been developing a department of international co-operation, with experts from all over the world, to promote bilateral and multilateral co-operation and work with friendly countries, international and regional organisations and global bodies focused on enhancing trade and commerce.”

He says: “We have started with the China region, hiring a Chinese professional with the purpose to develop non-oil trade solution between UAE and China. Other regions like Europe, Africa, US, Latin America, Asia and Russia will follow in due course.”

Falcioni adds that special attention will be dedicated to building the “Halal route”, which he describes as “a corridor across different regions, to ease trade and commerce of products lawful or permitted according to Islamic law.”

Al Nuaimi joins after a nine-year stint as executive vice-president of shared services at Abu Dhabi National Insurance Company (ADNIC), where he oversaw corporate reputation risk, brand positioning and managed the internal and external communications.

Prior to this he worked at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, as well as a couple of UAE-based companies, serving in a variety of senior corporate communications or business development roles.

ECI was set up in early 2018 to boost non-oil exports from the UAE, with the commodity currently making up about 25% of the UAE’s gross domestic product.