• Prime Minister Narendra Modi and United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan held a bilateral meeting in Gandhinagar on January 9.

• Al Nahyan is the chief guest at the 10th edition of Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit.

• This was the fourth meeting between Modi and Al Nahyan in less than seven months.

• Four MoUs were signed between India and the UAE in the presence of the two leaders, including one between the Gujarat government and DP World, a multinational logistics company based in Dubai.

• Three of the agreements between India and the UAE were on investment cooperation in renewable energy sector, innovative healthcare projects and food park development. 

India-UAE relations

• India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) established diplomatic relations in 1972. The UAE opened its embassy in India in 1972, and the Indian embassy in UAE was opened in 1973.

• The bilateral relations were upgraded to ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ in January 2017.

• Both countries are currently part of several multilateral platforms such as I2U2 (India-Israel-UAE-USA) and UFI (UAE-France-India) Trilateral. 

• India and UAE have shared trade links through the centuries. The trade, which was dominated by traditional items such as dates, pearls and fishes, underwent a sharp change after the discovery of oil in the UAE. 

• With the emergence of UAE as a unified entity in 1971, exports from India started growing gradually over the years. The real impetus, however, started after Dubai positioned itself as a regional trading hub by early 1990s and about the same time, the economic liberalisation process started in India.

• UAE is the fourth largest source for crude oil and second largest source for LNG and LPG for India.

• In February 2022, India and the UAE inked the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) to boost trade ties.

• The trade pact will help in taking the two-way trade to $100 billion in five years.

• Growing India-UAE economic and commercial relations contribute to the stability and strength of a rapidly diversifying and deepening bilateral relationship between the two countries.

• India-UAE trade, valued at $180 million per annum in the 1970s, is today $84.84 billion making UAE, India’s third largest trading partner for the year 2021-22 after China and US.

• Moreover, UAE is the second largest export destination of India (after the US) with an amount of nearly $31.61 billion for the year 2022-23.

• India’s major export items to the UAE are petroleum products, precious metals, stones, gems & jewellery, minerals, food items (cereals, sugar, fruits & vegetables, tea, meat, and seafood), textiles (garments, apparel, synthetic fibre, cotton, yarn) and engineering & machinery products and chemicals. 

• India’s major import items from the UAE are petroleum and petroleum products, precious metals, stones, gems & jewellery, minerals, chemicals and wood products.

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