UAE’s Next $25 Billion Bet On India Includes Energy Sector

The United Arab Emirates has expressed intent to invest another $25 billion in India, including in the energy sector, Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said at a high-level meeting in Mumbai.

The UAE has already invested about $25 billion in India and has signaled its intent to invest another $25 billion in the near term, the Indian minister said at the 14th Meeting of the India-UAE High Level Joint Task Force on Investments.

The UAE ultimately targets to have $100 billion invested in India in the long term, according to the minister.

The UAE-India meeting was co-chaired by Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, managing director of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), and was attended by Thani bin Al Zeyoudi, the Emirati Minister of Foreign Trade.

The Indian minister noted that he held “productive discussions on further strengthening our robust trade & investment partnership, with a focus on advancing cooperation across energy, infrastructure, logistics, advanced technology, food security and other priority sectors.”

ADIA’s Al Nahyan and the Indian minister also discussed “accelerating the India-UAE economic partnership and fully leveraging the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), a landmark framework driving trade, investment, and building resilient supply chains,” Goyal said.

The India-UAE bilateral trade has doubled to $100 billion since the countries signed the CEPA deal four years ago. Now they plan to double this again to $200 billion by 2032, India’s Goyal said at the investment task force meeting.

Earlier this year, at the peak blockage of the Strait of Hormuz in May, India signed a strategic agreement with the United Arab Emirates to receive liquefied petroleum gas from the UAE, as well as a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on strategic petroleum reserves.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed the LPG supply deal and the strategic reserves pact during a quick two-hour visit to the UAE in the middle of May, as India was scrambling to ease energy supply pressures that began to hit its economy.

Source: Oilprice