The United Arab Emirates will invest another 40 billion euros in Germany. The figure was announced by both sides during Emirati president Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan's state visit to Berlin - and it more than doubles the Gulf state's existing investments in the German economy, which stood at 34 billion euros.

On top of that, 29 contracts were signed between German and Emirati companies, worth almost 9.4 billion euros. Berlin and Dubai are setting up a German-Emirati Investment Council to encourage investment and strengthen dialogue between the public and private sectors.

Where the money goes

Part of the investment is earmarked for advanced digital infrastructure - among other things, the development of new, state-of-the-art data centres with a capacity of roughly one gigawatt. That is not a small thing: one gigawatt is the size of a serious power plant, and we are talking about server consumption.

The Emirati president was received with full military honours by German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and then met Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The UAE is Germany's most important trading partner in the Gulf. Last year bilateral trade came to just over 13 billion euros - Germany exported around 11 billion worth of goods to the UAE, and imported around two billion from the Emirates.

What that ratio actually says

Eleven billion in exports against two billion in imports. That is five to one in Germany's favour. And yet the side that imports five times more than it sells is the one now walking in with 40 billion of its own capital. The Gulf states have spent years putting oil revenues into other countries' economies, infrastructure and technology - and that is not charity, it is positioning for the period when oil will no longer be the main card.

Germany, for its part, enters this from a position it did not hold ten years ago. The industrial base that underpinned its power for decades now faces expensive energy and global competition that does not wait. When an economy like that receives big Gulf money with military honours at the airport, that says something about the economy too.

In the Balkans we know visits like this. The difference is that here Gulf investment usually amounts to an announced memorandum, a sketch of some complex and a photograph of a handshake. Germany signed 29 contracts with concrete figures. Would it look the same here?