Very few of India’s most modern-day relationships is driven by strategic salience, huge uptick in trade ties, personal warmth and frequent visits between the leaders, seamless people-to-people ties, security cooperation, and almost a wrinkle-free upkeep of tone and tenor the way its ties with United Arab Emirates have been.
Barring perhaps Japan, no other modern-day relationship holds such potential for the future either.
All this will be in full display in Gujarat during the roadshow by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan Tuesday, a day ahead of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit (VGGS).
Optics often plays an optimal role in international relations. The India-UAE ties have it aplenty. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the UAE six times so far since 2015 and another trip is in the works. President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan is visiting India for the fourth time since 2016, twice as crown prince and twice as President.
Optics alone doesn’t drive a relationship to a plane of forging mutually beneficial, deeply reinforcing and constantly growing ties. A substantive agenda, converging interests, a stake in each other’s future, and people’s participation lie at the heart of it.
Racing against adversities of COVID-19, India and the UAE brought into force the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) on May 1, 2022, the Emirates' first CEPA, which sort of became a template for its foreign trade agenda since then.
As tariffs on more than 80 percent of products were either slashed or eliminated, the non-oil trade reached US$50 billion between May 2022, and April 2023, showing promise that the target of non-oil trade hitting $100 billion by 2030 could be possible between India and the UAE, which is a second home to 3.5 million Indian nationals.
Geography plays a pivotal role in building strategic salience. The UAE has the locational advantage along with trade expertise, financial wherewithal and an urge to forge its own role in global affairs as the American grip on the region is on the wane. And these tick India's boxes for a deep and reciprocal partnership.
The UAE is also a vital cog in the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC) that would boost connectivity and could act as a demonstrable and credible alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Though its tempo is lulled by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, the I2U2 grouping of Israel, India, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, which aims to deepen technological and private sector collaboration in the region and tackle transnational challenges in focus areas including water, energy, and transportation, holds promise.
The UAE has been deeply understanding towards India’s politically sensitive issues such as Kashmir for a long time. With ties constantly being forged in newer frontiers, the relationship is becoming immensely significant for the two countries.
Jayanth Jacob is a foreign policy commentator who covered the ministry of external affairs for more than two decades. Twitter: @jayanthjacob. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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