AlHijjah 2, 1434, Oct 7, 2013, SPA -- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Italy signed here today a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for building long-term strategic partnership and cooperation for supporting small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) and encouraging research and development (R&D) and innovation. The MoU was signed by Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, UAE Minister of Economy, and President of Italy's National Research Council (CNR) Prof. Luigi Nicolais. The MoU aims to take necessary measures that explore and encourage avenues of joint cooperation in the SMEs sector, R&D and technological innovation in diverse sectors as petrochemicals, biomedical sciences, geology, environmental technology, agriculture, food, water, ICT, energy and renewable energy and transport.