A privileged strategic partnership-India and U.A.E.

Source-This post on India-U.A.E. relations has been created based on the article “A privileged strategic partnership, without a gulf” published in “The Hindu” on 10 February 2024.

UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 2 International Relations – Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.

News-The article highlights the robust bilateral relationship between India and U.A.E.

Context– Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from February 13-14, 2024, to inaugurate a temple in Abu Dhabi.

What is the status of India-U.A. E relations?

The upcoming visit will be the Prime minister’s seventh visit to the UAE since 2015 and the third in the last eight months. Further, UAE President was felicitated in a road show when he was in Gandhinagar in January this year as the chief guest of the 10th Vibrant Gujarat Summit.
In this short duration. India’s relationship with UAE has evolved into becoming one of the most prominent bilateral relationships for New Delhi.

What are the Areas of cooperation between India-U.A.E. relationship?

1) Strategic cooperation-a) India is a part of a number of important groupings such as the I2U2 or the West Asian Quad comprising India, Israel, the United States and the UAE.
b) The UAE is also part of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC) infrastructure project that was signed during the G-20 summit in Delhi. This is aimed to counter China’s Belt and road initiative in the region.

2) Energy cooperation– The UAE is only nation from the gulf region which has strategic oil reserves stored in India. An agreement was signed by Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserves Ltd (ISPRL) and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company to invest in the strategic crude oil storage facility in Mangaluru.

3) Economic cooperation a) The UAE is India’s third-largest trading partner and India’s second-largest export destination. The bilateral trade between the two countries grew to $85 billion in 2022-23.
b)  The UAE is also the fourth-largest overall investor in India.
c) The India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement aims to increase trade in services to $115 billion in five years.
d) The Indian government has also approved the signing and ratification of a bilateral investment treaty with the UAE.

4) Technical cooperation– India and U.A.E. have a robust financial technology cooperation. For example-a) The RuPay card, a key component of India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), is accepted in the UAE.
b) From July 2023, the rupee was accepted for transactions at Dubai’s airports.
c) India and the UAE have operationalized a rupee-dirham settlement system where the Indian Oil Corporation made a rupee payment to the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company for crude oil imports.

5) Climate change cooperation-PM Modi attended the COP 28 climate summit held in Dubai. To address the issue of finance, India and the UAE co-launched the Global Green Credit Initiative.

What are the areas of divergence between India and U.A.E.?

1) There are challenges like unclear regulations, labour laws and transparency faced by Indian businesses’ in U.A.E.

2) The UAE and Iran have territorial disputes between them. Any escalation in this will affect India’s trade and energy security.

3) The UAE is home to a large number of Indians. There are so many blue-collar workers and manual laborers as well. They face many issues such as terrible working and living conditions, and discrimination in treatment vis-a-vis other workers.

Conclusion–India and UAE display great convergence and mutual respect at all levels. There are certain divergences, but those exist even among the best of friendly nations.