India-UAE CEPA boosting trade and opening up other opportunities
India’s landmark Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the UAE is paving the way for bilateral trade to reach $100 billion in the next five years. With a $75 billion UAE-India Infrastructure Investment Fund, exciting opportunities await UAE investors in industrial parks, logistics hubs, food corridors and more, highlighted a recent report.
India and the UAE are thus delivering on the promise of the CEPA.
Throughout 2024, the two countries have deepened their cooperation, expanded bilateral trade and launched exciting new projects as part of a shared commitment to mutually beneficial growth and opportunity.
Since January, India and UAE have come together to:
* Establish the India-UAE Start-Up Initiative to help entrepreneurs access each other’s markets.
*Begin work on Bharat Mart, a 700,000 square foot complex in Jafza that will enable Indian manufactures and exporters to access global markets.
* Enhance cross-border payment processes and begin the integration of payment systems.
* Launch the UAE-India CEPA Council to ensure that the opportunities are fully leveraged.
All this comes as the two countries recorded bilateral, non-oil trade of $28.2 billion in H1 2024 – a year-on-year increase of 9.8% or 6.5 times higher than the global average.
“The UAE-India CEPA wasn’t the culmination of the efforts to spur greater trade and investment between our nations, it was a means to enhance them. We can be confident that 2025 will deliver even greater successes for us both,” the UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade had emphasised recently.
Source: Exim News Service: New Delhi/Dubai, Jan. 12