Bilateral ties play key role in meeting India’s economy target: UAE official

Sajjad Ahmad, Gulf Today

The fifth edition of the UAE-India Economic Forum recently took place at Waldorf Astoria, Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), with the participation of high dignitaries and officials, leading experts and leaders from the two nations.

India’s partnership with the UAE is set to play a key role in its march towards the ambitious goal of becoming a $5 trillion economy by 2022, said Abdullah Ahmed Al Saleh, Under-Secretary for Foreign Trade and Industry, Ministry of Economy.

Addressing the opening session of the Forum organised by BusinessLive Middle East, Al Saleh said the strong bilateral ties are the result of the political will articulated by both governments and their sustained efforts to work together for the mutual benefit.

Al Saleh said the recent meeting of the UAE-India High Level Joint Task Force on Investments, which is a platform to communicate mutual requirements and vision for the future, has played a key role in boosting bilateral investments and cooperation.

“With Expo 2020 around the corner, we will witness India’s commitment with one of the largest pavilions, which is a testament to the value the country puts to promoting bilateral economic relations,” he added.

Al Saleh said the UAE is the largest Arab investor country in India, accounting for 81.2 per cent of total Arab investments. The UAE investments into India’s $2.8 trillion economy are estimated to be around $10 billion including foreign direct investment of almost $5 billion.

“The UAE hosts the largest Indian community overseas and their annual remittances are estimated to be more than $17 billion, which is 38 per cent of the total outflow,” he said.

“As both countries remain keen as ever to strengthen the trade dialogue, recently, an ambitious project - the India -UAE food corridor - was launched with the plan to benefit two million farmers and create an additional 200,000 jobs across India, due to cumulative investments of more than $7 billion by the UAE in the next three years,” said Al Saleh.

Among the dignitaries present at the day-longs sessions were Vipul, Consul General of India in Dubai; Fahad Al Gergawi; Chief Executive Officer; Dubai FDI; and Jamal Al Jarwan; Secretary-General; UAE International Investors Council; and Ali Ibrahim; Deputy Director-General; Dubai Economic Development, according to Poonam Chawla, Associate Publisher, BusinessLive Middle East.

Poonam Chawla said the UAE-India Economic Forum 2019 was a great success as it highlighted the areas of cooperation between the UAE and India. “It helped to throw light on how this historic bilateral relationship has been elevated to a strategic partnership while creating new opportunities in various fields like IT, trade, food, smart cities, banking and fin-techs, renewable energy and startups,” Poonam said.

According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the FDI to the UAE rose by eight per cent to $10.4 billion in part due to rising cross-border mergers and acquisitions sales, making the country the largest source of FDI in 2017 for the Arab region (at 36 per cent of total FDI inflow). India is UAE’s second-largest trade partner today and the UAE has become India’s third-largest trading partner, with the total non-oil trade between the two countries recorded at $35.9 billion in 2018.

A special mention to the UAE-India Economic Forum 2019 sponsors “Ajman Free Zone” and “Galadari Advocates and Legal Consultants”. In the 5th Edition of the UIEF delegates brainstormed on new opportunities for partnerships with sessions on infrastructure, banking and finance, fin-tech, healthcare, food corridors, smart cities and start-ups. The UAE-India Economic Forum also felicitated government and industry leaders, who have worked towards nurturing ties between the two nations, with the Qadat Al Tagheer Awards.

Meanwhile India jumped 14 ranks to 63rd position in the World Bank’s ‘Doing Business’ list. India was also among the top-10 progress-making countries according to the multilateral agency in terms of ease of Doing Business. India’s flagship programme ‘Make in India’ and other economic reforms have been credited to have improved the country’s global ranking in the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ index of the World Bank to 63rd position.

Accordingly, the annual index report − Doing Business 2020 − released by the World Bank showed India as being amongst the top 10 improvers, stating that “Given the size of India’s economy, these reform efforts are particularly commendable”.

The report released on Thursday said: “Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign focused on attracting foreign investment, boosting the private sector − manufacturing in particular − and enhancing the country’s overall competitiveness.” “The government turned to the Doing Business indicators to show investors India’s commitment to reform and to demonstrate tangible progress. In 2015, the government’s goal was to join the 50 top economies on the ease of doing business ranking by 2020.”