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Dubai’s Water, Energy, Technology and Environment Exhibition (WETEX) 2026 hosted 13 international pavilions and brought together 3,000 companies from 60 countries, according to the Emirates News Agency’s 23 October event report. The 28th edition was organised by Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) at Dubai World Trade Centre from 20 to 22 October. The event also included 60 sponsors and 23 partners and supporting associations.
The pavilions included participants from Germany, Italy, Belgium, China, India, Türkiye, Czechia and Korea, and were distributed across several halls at the venue. The report did not provide a country-by-country company count, visitor total, or the value of contracts or investment commitments concluded during the exhibition. The participation figures therefore describe the event’s reported scale, rather than a measure of business generated.
DEWA managing director and chief executive Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, who founded and chairs WETEX, said the exhibition focused on artificial intelligence, decarbonisation, green mobility, green hydrogen, and smart and sustainable cities. He connected the event to the UAE Net Zero by 2050 initiative and Dubai’s clean-energy and net-zero strategies. These are policy frameworks the event says it supports; the release does not measure WETEX’s contribution to their targets.
The report included comments from several participating countries. Germany’s ambassador referred to an agreement between German Water Partnership and the Mohamed bin Zayed Water Initiative to co-develop smart-water innovations, and said German firms were presenting at the event. The article described this agreement as an example of cooperation but did not set out its financial value, delivery schedule or project list. Italy’s ambassador framed participation around green technology and clean energy; Belgium’s representative pointed to water, clean-energy and environmental solutions; and Türkiye’s consul general cited potential business contacts in water management and sustainable infrastructure. These remarks describe participants’ objectives and views, not confirmed contracts arising from WETEX.
The WAM report also placed the exhibition alongside UAE trade indicators for the first half of 2026: non-oil foreign trade was AED1.937 trillion, up 13.1% year on year, while non-oil exports reached AED452.8 billion. It listed China, Switzerland and India as the leading non-oil trading partners by value. Those national figures provide economic context; they are not WETEX outcomes and do not show trade caused by the event.
The event account points to WETEX’s role as a convening platform bringing suppliers, utilities, government representatives and industry groups together across water, energy and environmental technology. The number of pavilions and participating firms documents breadth of attendance, while the comments show the themes participants chose to emphasize. The source does not quantify commercial follow-up, technology deployment or emissions and water savings. Any assessment of those effects would require later, independently verifiable project or contract information.
The timing also shapes how the announcement should be read: WAM published its account on 23 October, after the three-day exhibition had ended. The figures for companies, countries, sponsors and pavilions describe reported participation. Statements about cooperation and policy alignment describe participants’ positions or existing initiatives, while the national trade totals describe the wider UAE economy. The report does not connect those economy-wide totals to the exhibition or show that announced cooperation advanced to implementation during the event. Keeping those evidence types separate avoids treating attendance or stated intent as a completed commercial or environmental outcome.