There used to be a requirement in the Foreign Office - now optional - that at the end of each year the Head of Mission should send a review of what had happened in his or her country over the last year, and look ahead to what the next twelve months might bring. As we approach the summer break, it might be useful to try something similar here, though with the emphasis more on what lies ahead than on what has passed, since many Capital Letter readers have already participated in that!

As I remarked on that mercifully balmy April evening to mark The Queen's Birthday, resplendent with the Band of the Prince of Wales' Division, it has been quite a year for visits from Britain to the Emirates, from the Embassy's viewpoint at least. Since the end of Ramadan, The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke of York (together they spent more than two weeks in the country), two former Prime Ministers (Tony Blair and John Major), one of whom was serving at the time, the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary (twice), the Culture Secretary, The Lord Mayor of London, the Economic Secretary and Minister for the City, the Paymaster General, the Chief of the Defence Staff and a host of senior civilian and military officials, all have seen for themselves the reality of present day Abu Dhabi and the immense potential that is to come.

Their visits have been accompanied, I am delighted to say, by a steady flow of Chief Executives, from the oil industry, banking, power generation, light and heavy industry, aerospace, engineering, law and other services, universities and schools, hospitals, defence and security, retail, the arts and many more.

Why is it so important that these top political and commercial leaders come here? At the political level, it is because the fact of the visit itself sends an important message about the priority of the visited country for the visiting nation, since by definition there are only so many countries that any senior leader can visit in a year, and so our leaders tend to go to those that are most important to the UK. In addition, because behind the public side and the razzmatazz of most such visits, there will almost always have been a good deal of private work in train between our respective governments, the purpose of which is to boost the relationship, but whose nature cannot always be exposed to view. In this respect, the relationship between our two Governments has indeed become a good deal more operational over the last year, including in respect of the results achieved. For example, towards the end of last year we finalised four agreements designed to facilitate our shared efforts to fight serious and organised crime.

The commercial relationship in those instances where it has been right for Government to be involved has been similarly productive. At a business level, we all know that the UAE is easily the UK's largest market in the Middle East, that it has been identified as one of the Government's Priority Trading Partners for the next five years, that we export more here than to China and so on. The UAE's potential, not just from being a trusted and valued partner across the two centuries of our shared history, but more practically for the next generations too, is increasingly widely recognised, by the more than one million British tourists who came here last year and by the more than 120,000 British citizens who live here, making us by some way the largest British community in the Middle East.

The point, I think, is twofold. First, as I have said before, seeing is believing. It can be hard to realise, and internalise, just how great is the potential without seeing it for oneself, and talking to the political and business leaders of Abu Dhabi about their strategic vision and plans for the future. Second, because it is important that UK leaders from all walks of life who have pretensions to do business here, of whatever kind, be seen to be out here and fighting for that business.

One of last year's salient trends, which seems set only to increase in the year ahead, was the intensity of the competition on all fronts. My conclusion, unremarkable and certainly applicable to the Embassy's efforts too, is that we shall all need to be even more on our respective mettles over the coming year if we are to come out ahead, whatever our field may be. We need not only to fight our corner, but to be seen to do so. Both price and quality have to be there. Customer care is no less determinative in this market than any other.

And government and business need to work closely together on this, closely and visibly. One variation which we should perhaps consider for the future is combined political and business visits, in which our senior politicians and CEOs make a joint trip here to underline in person to our Emirati counterparts how seriously they - we - take this market, and, more fundamentally, this partnership.

I would also like to see if Government and British business can work even more closely together over the coming year too, at levels slightly below the rather stratospheric of the last paragraph, namely between the Embassy and the many British businesses, large and small, already so active in Abu Dhabi. To that end, we shall be trying to get out and about even more, to find out how we can best help, to suggest connections, and to focus activity on what Emirati customers have told us are their priorities, such as education, health, construction and renewable energy, as well as on the UAE's increasingly important role as a regional hub. But with over 20,000 British citizens in Abu Dhabi, we cannot reach everyone on our own, so we hope that you will come to us too, that the dialogue will be two-way, and that you will reciprocate in all of these areas as well as in the many more which there is no room to mention here.

But that is for the autumn. As the temperatures climb and the height of summer approaches, it only remains for me to thank you all enormously for all that you have already done for the UK, for UK business and for the UK-Emirati partnership over the last year, to wish you a very relaxing, enjoyable and well-earned break with your families over the summer, and to look forward to seeing you back here in September.

Edward Oakden is the British Ambassador to the UAE