India, UAE to sign 13 pacts during Crown Prince’s visit for Republic Day celebrations
Topping with an umbrella pact on comprehensive strategic partnership, India and the UAE are set to sign 13 agreements in various fields during the visit of Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and deputy supreme commander of the armed forces of the Gulf nation.
The crown prince is the chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations on January 26, the second time a leader of the Gulf nation will be doing the honours after the king of Saudi Arabia in 2006.
The comprehensive strategic partnership pact is expected to further consolidate the growing ties between the countries, which includes robust security cooperation. The pacts will be signed after the crown prince holds bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 25. Focus is expected to be on economic ties.
“We are expecting to sign around 13 agreements, which will be crowned by the main agreement that will be the strategic dialogue,” said Ahmed Abdulrahman A AlBanna, the UAE ambassador to India.
The two countries will hold annual strategic dialogue at the level of junior foreign ministers. The next dialogue will take place in September this year.
The envoy said his country is willing to enhance cooperation with India on counter-terrorism, but refused to answer specific questions on whether his country would play any crucial role on India’s concerns over cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
“We condemn terrorism and coordinate with any country to work on countering terrorism”, the envoy said.
He also refused to comment on reports that the UAE government has recently attached properties of Dawood Ibrahim. “I don’t actually like to talk about reports that have any firm source or foundation. I don’t read it. It means nothing to me,” the envoy said.
The UAE leader is accompanied by a tolerance delegation and they would hold discussion with various stakeholders on issues such as religious tolerance and harmony.
India, UAE to sign strategic partnership agreement
India, UAE to sign strategic partnership agreement
Indrani Bagchi| TNN | Jan 23, 2017, 06.24 AM IST
ABU DHABI: India and the UAE will sign an agreement sealing a "comprehensive strategic partnership" between the two countries when Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan visits this week as chief guest of the Republic Day parade. "It will be one of 10 agreements that we will be signing," said
Anwar Gargash, state minister for foreign affairs, who has just returned from India after holding the first strategic dialogue with his counterpart
M J Akbar.
This dialogue will also serve as an oversight mechanism for the relationship. "We plan to keep the mechanism nimble, and will meet twice a year," Gargash said. As reported by TOI, a military contingent from the UAE will march in the Republic Day parade, which will be a first of sorts. Sheikh Mohammed is expected to arrive on January 24, hold official talks the next day and attend the parade on January 26. He will be coming with a large delegation including minister of economy Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, who will also visit
Andhra Pradesh to scout for economic opportunities.
"We now have strategic direction. Prime Minister
Narendra Modi did something remarkable by investing in this relationship," Gargash said. "Private sector ties were always strong but governments were behind the curve. Now governments are in the driving seat, and that is important," he added. In February, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, will send four of its executive directors to India to identify investment opportunities, particularly in the infrastructure sector. Gargash said a study by the UAE government had decided several years ago that India should be a focus of their diplomacy. But it needed India to take the lead in pushing the bilateral relationship to a different level
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...artnership-agreement/articleshow/56725514.cms
India, UAE look to expand counter-terrorism partnership
s year. Photo: AFP
New Delhi: India is looking to expand counter-terrorism cooperation with the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—once seen as a key strategic ally of Pakistan—during a visit by crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, this week.
Sheikh Zayed, who is also the supreme commander of the UAE armed forces, will be the chief guest at the Republic Day parade on 26 January. He is only the second leader from the Gulf region to be the chief guest at the Republic Day parade—after the late king Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in 2006.
During Sheikh Zayed’s visit to New Delhi is expected to send out a strong message against terrorism. Against the backdrop of the deaths of five UAE diplomats in a terrorist attack in Kandahar earlier this month, New Delhi and the UAE are certain to find common ground on the subject.
Five agreements, including one on infrastructure—road and maritime transport—are expected to be signed, bolstering economic ties that rest on a strong energy relationship. The UAE is one of India’s top five sources of energy.
The all round strengthening of ties is expected to take place under the umbrella of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) agreement that is expected to be concluded during Sheikh Zayed’s visit starting on Tuesday. That the two countries would conclude the CSP was decided during his visit to India last February.
Since taking office in May 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited several countries in the Gulf —and the UAE was the first in August 2015. Modi later visited Saudi Arabia and Qatar besides Iran. “Strengthening cooperation with all the countries in the Gulf region is part of India’s ‘Look West’ policy,” said a person familiar with the developments.
“Ties with the UAE are an integral component of this. The invitation (to Sheikh Zayed) to be the chief guest at the Republic Day parade underlines India’s commitment to strengthening ties with the UAE and the region in general which is a key source of energy, hosts millions of Indian workers, is a crucial source of investments and a valued partner in the strategic sense,” the person cited above said.
According to a Moody’s investors service report last year, India gets 52.1% of its remittances from the Gulf nations. In 2015-16, India’s exports to the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar) totalled $ 41.71 billion. Counter-terrorism cooperation and boosting defence ties will be a significant component of the CSP, a second person said. This is significant as it comes amid reports of a slide in ties between the UAE and Pakistan following the killings in Afghanistan. Afghan authorities were quoted saying Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and the Pakistan-based Haqqani network were behind the 10 January terrorist attack. This was a rare instance of UAE diplomats being targeted on foreign soil, according to news reports from Dubai.
Pakistan-UAE ties were already tense following Islamabad’s decision in 2015 to stay out of a multinational force to take on the Shia Houthi group in Yemen. This was following a request from King Salman of Saudi Arabia. The UAE was also one of the first countries to condemn the Pathankot and Uri terrorist attacks in India last year. India is also looking at the UAE as an export destination for defence equipment. Increased bilateral military training and exercises are also expected to be part of the CSP, the second person said.
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/GA...k-to-expand-counterterrorism-partnership.html
UAE says ball in India's court to set up $75 billion investment fund
The United Arab Emirates has attributed the delay in setting up the $75 billion
UAE-India Infrastructure Investment Fund on New Delhi's failure in putting in place the necessary governance structures. The UAE is keen that New Delhi expedites the process and has also shown interest to have an 'open sky policy' in the
aviation sector and an improved bilateral investment agreement.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the UAE in August 2015 was a watershed in many ways, and not just because Modi was the first Indian PM in 34 years to have visited the Emirates, which is one of India's biggest trade and investment partners.
That visit raised India-UAE ties beyond trade to the level of strategic partnership. It also led UAE to agree to set up a $75 billion
UAE-India Infrastructure Investment Fund to support investments over a 10-year period in India's infrastructure sector. The focus of the fund will be roads, railways, ports, airports and industrial corridors and parks.
But there is little forward movement in setting up the fund nearly 18 months after the PM and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan's had signed the memorandum of understanding for this. The two leaders had reiterated their intent to set up the $75 billion fund when the Crown Prince visited India in February 2016.
The Crown Prince lands in New Delhi on Tuesday for a three-day state visit, and he will be the chief guest at this year's
Republic Day parade. UAE's Ambassador to India Dr
Ahmed Al Banna today said the two sides will sign 13 agreements, covering several sectors from counter-terrorism to strengthening economic ties, during the visit of the Crown Prince. The highlight will be an agreement to institutionalize a biannual strategic dialogue between the two foreign ministries at the minister of state level. Its first meeting is scheduled for September 2017.
On the UAE-India Infrastructure Investment Fund, the Ambassador said that India has only recently appointed the chief executive officer to its National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF). "There has been one meeting (on this). It is a matter of setting up the governance structures. Now ball is in the court of the Indian side to finalize the governance of the setting up of that $75 billion fund. We are ready for it," the UAE Ambassador said.
Dr Al Banna said India and UAE will strengthen their counter-terrorism cooperation during the visit of the Crown Prince, but dismissed reports that the Emirates has frozen property and other assets of one of India's most wanted terrorists, Dawood Ibrahim. He said there was "no basis" to these reports.
The Crown Prince will be accompanied by an economic as well as a "tolerance" delegation. The UAE has special ministries for tolerance, happiness and future. The Ambassador said the delegation will meet its counterparts here and talk about how the Emirates was home to 200 nationalities living peacefully. He said the UAE wants to showcase that it's a modern country and respects all religions. The Ambassador said the UAE has always condemned terror attacks on India, and is committed to eradication of terrorism and extremism.
Currently, India and UAE have a $350 billion bilateral trade, which the two plan to increase three times in the near future. After China and the US, the Emirates is India's largest trading partner. In the last one year, UAE investments into India were $10 billion, including foreign direct investment of $4 billion. As many as 2.8 million Indians that work in UAE sent remittances worth $13.8 billion back home.
A whopping 1070 flights operate between UAE and Indian airports per week, of which 580 are operated by Indian carriers and the rest by UAE carriers. The two sides inked a revised air services agreement recently, but the Ambassador said the UAE hopes to reach the 'open sky policy' with India. He said that the bilateral investment agreement has been revised but the Emirates looks forward to an improved agreement.
On the 'e-Migrate' system launched by India for recruitment of Indian workers in the UAE, the Ambassador said an expert team was looking into the issues involved, and the UAE feels that some aspects of it impinge on its sovereignty. The Ambassador said issues will soon be sorted out.
http://www.business-standard.com/ar...5-billion-investment-fund-117012301042_1.html
