Sheikh Manzoor
With the coming into force of the Indo-Uae Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement today, India’s exports to the United Arab Emirates are set to touch 40 billion dollars this year . This historic agreement which was signed on the sidelines of a virtual meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vice President of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Muhammed bin Zayed,will further cement already deep, close and strategic relations between the two countries and create new employment opportunities. Indian exports to the Emirates are around 26 billion dollars and were subjected to a five per cent import duty. But 97 per cent of the Indian products and items will have nowduty free excess to the Emirates market.
The ECPA will help increase the volume of bilateral trade from the present 60 billion dollars to over 1000 billion dollars in the next five years. It offered immediate market access to the Indian good from day one of the entry into force of agreements. The UAE has offered free market access to over 100 items. Officials said that the agreement will help increase Indian export to the Emirates by 20 per cent.It is expected to touch 40 billion dollars from the present 26 billion dollars, led by an increase in exports of gems and jewellery, textile and leather items. Ajay Sahai, Director General of Federation Indian Exports Organisation said that India will get highly benefitted by the free market access. This will be beneficial mainly for labour-intensive sector export like textiles, leather footwear, agriculture and plastic and wooden furniture.In return India l also preferential status to the UAE goods.
India is also keen to take advantage of tariff concession and planning to use the emirate as a hub for re-export to the African nations. Meanwhile, reports suggest that the government is looking at setting up Bharat Mart on the lines of China’s Dragon Mart at Jabil al Dubai. As Sri Lanka faces an acute financial crisis,this has provided an opportunity to India to increase the export of tea to the gulf nation. India-UAE CEPA is the first step towards the conclusion of the free trade agreement between the two friendly nations.
The Agreement is comprehensive and covers Trade in Goods and Services,, Telecom, Customs, and Pharmaceutical products.
The CEPA provides for an institutional mechanism to encourage and improve trade between the two countries. The CEPA covers almost all the tariff lines dealt in by India (11,908 tariff lines) and the UAE (7581 tariff lines) respectively.
As regards trade in services, India has offered market access to the UAE in around 100 sub-sectors, while Indian service providers will have access to around 111 sub-sectors from the 11 broad service sectors such as ‘business’ ‘communication’, ‘construction, and related engineering, distribution’, ‘educational, environmental and financial services’, besides ‘health-related and social’, ‘tourism and travel, ‘recreational cultural and sporting and ‘transport sectors’
India and the UAE enjoy excellent bilateral relations, which are deep-rooted and historical, sustained and nurtured by close cultural and civilizational affinities, frequent high-level political interactions, and vibrant people-to-people linkages. The CEPA is a strategic partnership initiated during the visit of Prime Minister to UAE in 2015, is the cornerstone of our multi-faceted bilateral relations.
The UAE is also the eighth largest investor in India with an estimated investment of US$ 18 billion. Moreover, India and the UAE have recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) whereby the UAE has committed US$ 75 billion towards infrastructure development in India. The India-UAE CEPA will further cement the already deep, close and strategic relations between the two countries and will create new employment opportunities, raise living standards, and improve the general welfare of the peoples of the two countries.
Also published on Medium.
