The link-up between Mubadala of Abu Dhabi and GE of the United States looks like a business marriage made in heaven. By linking Gulf cash to American know-how, it goes way beyond a run-of-the-mill joint venture, satisfying the requirements of each side of the partnership in such a synergetic way that it can only be good for UAE and American business.

In an uncertain business world, it shows the value of the globalised approach, and offers a resounding riposte to the protectionists who would like to block such examples of international commercial co-operation. The two corporations – national champions of their own countries business sectors – are to each inject $4 billion (Dh14.6bn) in a joint venture, leverage up that equity to perhaps $40bn, and then work jointly on Abu Dhabi infrastructure projects, environmental technology development and other long-term industrial investment.

This is no tentative play by a western company in one of the regions' boom markets like real estate or leisure, nor a "flash" Arab investment in a trophy asset like Ferrari or the Chrysler building, nor the symbolic establishment of a head office in the Gulf, but a serious and long-term commitment to the development of the UAE's national fabric.

The JV will be like a giant, but very specialist, private equity group, dedicated to infrastructure investment in the UAE.

Mubadala's Khaldoon Al Mubarak has acquired himself the services of the best "one-stop shop" in the business, because GE can bring its skilled expertise to bear in engineering, technology and heavy industry. The deal will also hasten the process of technology transfer that is essential to the UAE's industrial future, and train a new cadre of regional managers in the sophisticated techniques of one of the best-regarded industrial groupings in the world. There will even be a UAE version of GE's famous Crotonville management school.

The first fruits of the deal will be a $50 million investment by GE to accelerate the development of Masdar City, Abu Dhabi's planned carbon-free, zero-waste city, and a $200m injection by Mubadala in a GE venture capital fund for new businesses in the health-care, energy and transport sectors.

Mubadala, with an estimated $10bn of funds, will need to go to the capital markets to fulfil its part of the deal, but that should be no problem with the backing of the Abu Dhabi Government.

It will also seek a credit rating for the first time to reinforce its impeccable financial credentials, which is good for the movement towards greater transparency in the region.

For its part, GE is solving many problems in one swoop. On a simplistic level, Jeff Immelt's company has secured an order book of $40bn for an outlay of one-tenth of that price, but there are many more benefits from the deal for the US company. GE, along with the rest of American business, has been fighting off the effects of the credit-crunch for the past year.

Its share price has fallen by 25 per cent in 2008, and it has faced calls to break up its portfolio of businesses.

Immelt has responded by signalling a willingness to consider the future of some of his financial operations, but this deal shows that the true value of the core GE operations still lies in industrial technology and engineering.

Mubadala has also agreed, in what must have been a deal-clincher for GE, to become a major shareholder in the US group over the near-term. This will put a support level on GE's share price (they rose two per cent on the announcement of the deal yesterday) and assuage the fears of those investors seeking a wider break-up. How much Mubadala will buy is yet to be determined, but it will take around $3bn to become one of GE's top 10 shareholders, and $30bn to become its biggest, as things currently stand.

Note too the "softly softly" approach by Mubadala. There has been no dawn-raid of GE shares, nor any sudden purchase of new equity to alienate existing shareholders, just a serous commitment to long-term share-price support. That will be music to the ears of US investors.

It should also go down pretty well in Washington. You can be sure some of the more conservative elements on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius) will want to scrutinise the Mubadala-GE agreement on spurious grounds of "national security" (read "protectionism"), but it is hard to see anything even the most xenophobic Texan red-neck could object to in these terms.

In fact, it is hard to see any losers in the "win-win" GE-Mubadala deal – except perhaps those other Gulf corporations that missed out on the chance to form a strategic alliance with one of the world's great corporations.