Friend from Dubai! Why is UAE necessary for India telling 5 factor?
Dubai’s Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammad Al Maktoom reached New Delhi for a two -day visit to India on 8 April. According to an official statement by the Ministry of External Affairs, during the visit, Sheikh Mohammad Al Maktoom will meet PM Modi as well as a meeting with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Defense Minister Rajnath Singh. He will also attend a business round table conference to strengthen India-UAE relations. This is Sheikh Hamdan’s first official visit to India as Crown Prince of Dubai.
The Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement that Crown Prince’s visit will further strengthen the widespread strategic partnership between India-UAE and strengthen our multidimensional relations with Dubai. Let’s try to understand why this journey of a friend from Dubai is important? From working together in Sri Lanka to being a liberal country in the Gulf and being the biggest supplier of oil-gas, there are many facts that give the importance of UAE for India.
1- India-UAE has completed 3 years of the Cast Economic Partnership Agreement
The Cast Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) has completed three years of its signature on 18 February 2025. CEPA is a complete and intensive agreement on 18 February 2022 during a virtual summit between PM Modi and UAE President and Majesty Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the President of UAE and the ruler of Abu Dhabi. It came into force from 1 May 2022.
If we talk in terms of India’s exports, then the non-oil export financial year 2023-24 reached US $ 27.4 billion-that is, an average increase of 25.6% has been recorded since the CEPA came into force.
India has got friend in the Gulf
Yari of India’s new phase from UAE started taking shape in August 2015 when Narendra Modi visited this Arab country for the first time after assuming power. This was the first visit of an Indian Prime Minister in 34 years after Indira Gandhi’s visit in 1981.
Recently many such fronts have come out where both countries are working together:
- 2- The Ministry of External Affairs informed on Saturday, April 5 that India and UAE have agreed to develop an energy hub in Sri Lanka. This is special for India because the competition of New Delhi with China is increasing in the island nation (Sri Lanka) of the Indian Ocean. During PM Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka, the three countries signed the agreement for the Energy Hub.
- 3- UAE is considered a generous friend of India in Bay. The ruler of the United Arab Emirates, like other oil rich Arab countries, is afraid of radical ideologies in their countries. This ideology of distance from fundamentalism also brings UAE closer to India.
- 4- The appointment of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan as the President of UAE has led to a big speed to the strategic relations between the two countries. Sheikh Mohammed’s policy so far indicates that he respects Indians very much and considers them to be working towards the progress and prosperity of his country. Approving the Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi and then the Sikh Gurdwara is a symbol of tolerance and co-existence.
- 5- The biggest connection between all these strategic relations between the two countries is at the ‘People to People’ level. According to the site of the Indian Embassy in UAE, the Indian migrant community is the largest ethnic community in UAE, which is about 30 percent of the population there. According to the UAE record, the number of Indian citizens resident in 2021 is estimated to be 3.5 million or 35 lakhs. About 20% of the migrants are in the Emirates of Abu Dhabi and the rest are 6 in Northern Emirates including Dubai. These Indian migrants living in UAE also have great importance for the economy of India. In the UAE, overseas Indians sent $ 20 billion back to India in 2022.
