India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have agreed to collaborate “in sharing and development of industries and advanced technologies” amid an ongoing drive by the two nations to increase their volume of bilateral trade and investment.
The agreement to boost cooperation in industries and advanced technologies was signed in Abu Dhabi on Thursday by India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry and the UAE’s Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology on the sideline of the 11th meeting of the UAE-India High Level Joint Task Force on Investments.
The agreement seeks to promote bilateral investments, technology transfer, and deployment of key technologies in industries through increased industrial and academic collaboration, joint research and development projects, knowledge and capability exchange protocols, and sharing of science and technology policies.
The two countries will also seek to strengthen the supply chain resilience of industries, focusing on renewable and energy efficiency, health and life sciences, space systems, artificial intelligence, and Industry 4.0 enabling technologies.
Terming the development a “game changer” in terms of “integrating the business and economies” of the two nations, India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Shri Piyush Goyal predicted that these “milestone decisions” will help Indian businesses flourish in the UAE. This, in turn, will help New Delhi attract more investment, he believes.
During the meeting of the task force, the countries reviewed the progress made on the implementation of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between the UAE and India, which came into force in May 2022.
The CEPA has helped reduce tariffs on more than 80% of product lines, eliminate barriers to trade and create new pathways for investment and joint ventures, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry noted in its statement. In the first 12 months of the CEPA, bilateral non-oil trade surpassed $50 billion, representing growth of 5.8% over the same period the year before.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan envisioned achieving a target of $100 billion turnover in non-petroleum products by 2030, up from the present $48 billion.
In July of this year, the two countries signed agreements to start settling trade in their respective national currencies, as well as to link their fast payment systems to make international financial interactions simpler. To this end, NPCI International Payments Ltd, a subsidiary of the National Payments Corporation of India on Thursday inked an agreement with Al Etihad Payments for domestic card scheme (RuPay) implementation in the UAE.
This development comes close on the heels of the proposal of an India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), which aims to bolster economic development by fostering connectivity and economic integration between India, the Arabian Gulf, and Europe. A memorandum of understanding was unveiled by the governments of India, the US, UAE, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, Italy, and the EU during the G20 summit in New Delhi in September.
Talking to ANI, Sanjay Sudhir, the Indian ambassador to the UAE, said that the proposed corridor is a “very special kind of connectivity” as “it is not just between two countries, it is between continents, between India and Europe, through the Gulf.” The corridor will facilitate the “transmission of electricity, green hydrogen, fiber optic cable, and other things,” he said, underlining that “it is not just connectivity in terms of carrying containers of traded items.”