China and India replaced long- standing Western suppliers of goods to the United Arab Emirates ( UAE) to become the dominant exporters to the Gulf nation, accounting for nearly a quarter of its total imports last year, the Emirates Business 24/7 website reported Wednesday.

India exported a record high 61.5 billion dirhams (about 16.7 billion dollars) worth of goods to the UAE in 2009, accounting for around 13.7 percent of the country's total imports, the report said, citing figures by the National Bureau of Statistics of the Economy Ministry.

The figures showed that China's exports to the UAE stood at 47. 8 billion dirhams (about 13 billion dollars) last year, constituting around 10.7 percent of the country's total imports of 447.3 billion dirhams (about 121.8 billion dollars).

Taken together, exports by India and China to the UAE totaled around 109.3 billion dirhams (29.7 billion dollars) in 2009, accounting for nearly 24.5 percent of the country's total imports, the report said.

Both countries had been small exporters to the UAE compared with such major industrial powers as Japan, the United States and the European Union during the 1990s before they overtook them and became the top exporters to the country, the second largest Arab economy and one of the top 20 global importers.