India, UAE and Trilateralism – New India Express

During peacetime, the foreign ministers of the two countries met eight times a year, which is really rare in the history of diplomacy.

The last meeting between Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and United Arab Emirates Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan in New Delhi on November 22 was the eighth between the two ministers Organized face-to-face meetings in the past 12 months.

No other foreign minister has had as many engagements with India over the past year as Sheikh Abdullah.

Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade, was India’s most frequent foreign official visitor in the last calendar year.

Zeyudi’s visit and India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal’s return visit led to the lightning-fast signing of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in February this year. Thanks to CEPA, bilateral trade in goods is targeted to increase to $100 billion in five years — from $73 billion now — and trade in services a further $15 billion.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s groundbreaking engagement with the Gulf region following his first visit to the UAE in August 2015 has resulted in an intense and comprehensive engagement between the two sides that has been marked over the past eight years. unprecedented in Indian diplomacy. The last prime minister to visit the UAE before Modi was Indira Gandhi in 1981.

In 2019, the United Arab Emirates’ Sultan bin Ahmad Al Jaber was the only foreign minister to make the most trips to New Delhi, often lasting no more than a few hours.

Even more important to India than Jaber’s current position as minister of industry and advanced technology is his role as managing director and group chief executive of national oil group Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). India’s aggressive engagement with Al Jaber has transformed its energy relationship with the UAE from a buyer-supplier nature to an energy security partnership.

Today, oil from ADNOC is stored in all of India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves, and for the first time an Indian company is drilling for oil in Abu Dhabi under a mutually agreed concession agreement. In terms of concrete results, often underestimated in India’s public discourse, the UAE is India’s biggest external success since the nuclear deal with the US.

Abu Dhabi has pledged to invest $75 billion in India’s infrastructure sector, and through this commitment the inflow has made the UAE India’s seventh-largest investor in terms of foreign direct investment. The conflict in Ukraine has exacerbated such anxieties as the two countries develop food security strategies at a time when food supply is a major global concern. Under this strategy, UAE entities have announced to invest up to $7 billion in the Indian food industry over the next three years.

The most significant diplomatic achievement in Modi’s regular dialogue with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan was the invitation of former Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj to speak at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Served as “Guest of Honor” at the Plenary Session 2019 in Abu Dhabi. The invitation ended a festering insult to India that had been festering since 1969, when senior cabinet minister and later president Fahruddin Ali Ahmed was rescinded to attend the founding of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation after arriving in Morocco for a conclave. Invitation to the Islamic Summit.

Three years ago, Modi was awarded the Order of Zayed, the UAE’s highest civilian award by then-President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the culmination of India’s full engagement with the UAE. The current President of the UAE was the guest of honor on India’s Republic Day 2017.

So what is the next frontier for India-UAE cooperation?

The two countries are currently working to overcome the inherent limitations of geographic and market asymmetries, and to upgrade bilateral engagement to the trilateral and plurilateral level. Two years after the signing of the Abraham Accords between the UAE and Israel, India has moved to leverage the UAE’s resources (financial and logistical) to serve the country’s huge market with Israel’s state-of-the-art advanced technology. One example is the Israeli company Eccopia’s decision last year to manufacture autonomous waterless robots in India and deploy them in the UAE for solar-powered cleaning in UAE projects. More such trilateral initiatives are in the pipeline.

In September, as leaders from around the world gathered in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly, India used Sherpa meetings of the newly formed I2U2 group (India, Israel, UAE, US) to accelerate hybrid renewable energy projects Energy in Gujarat, including 300 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar capacity, complemented by battery storage systems.

Israel is a world leader in solar technology and as part of the I2U2 process, the US Trade and Development Agency is conducting a feasibility study for the Gujarat project. The International Federation of India-Israel Chambers of Commerce is a new and unique tripartite initiative: its founder and chairman, Merzi Sodawaterwala, says it is the only bi-national business organization based in a third country, the UAE.

The Third Country Initiative between the UAE and India identifies joint action in sub-Saharan Africa focusing on capacity building, trade and technology cooperation, and joint projects aimed at supporting the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

There are large Indian business communities across Africa, which the UAE’s financial resources will leverage to achieve this ambitious goal. On the sidelines of the 77th UN General Assembly, the first ministerial meeting of India, France and the UAE was held in New York in September to discuss trilateral initiatives in the Indo-Pacific region. The initiative will explore triangular cooperation in maritime security, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, connectivity and supply chain resilience.

Trilateralism is the watchword for the next phase of cooperation between India and the UAE that began seven years ago.

KP Nayar

strategic analyst

(kpnayar@gmail.com)

</p> <p>During peacetime, the foreign ministers of the two countries met eight times a year, which is really rare in the history of diplomacy. The last meeting between Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and United Arab Emirates Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan in New Delhi on November 22 was the eighth between the two ministers Organized face-to-face meetings in the past 12 months. No other foreign minister has had as many engagements with India over the past year as Sheikh Abdullah. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade, was India’s most frequent foreign official visitor in the last calendar year. Zeyudi’s visit and India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal’s return visit led to the lightning-fast signing of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in February this year. Thanks to CEPA, bilateral trade in goods is targeted to increase to $100 billion in five years — from $73 billion now — and trade in services a further $15 billion. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s groundbreaking engagement with the Gulf region following his first visit to the UAE in August 2015 has resulted in an intense and comprehensive engagement between the two sides that has been marked over the past eight years. unprecedented in Indian diplomacy. The last prime minister to visit the UAE before Modi was Indira Gandhi in 1981. In 2019, the UAE’s Sultan bin Ahmed al-Jaber was the only foreign minister to visit New Delhi the most, often lasting no more than a few hours. Even more important to India than Jaber’s current position as minister of industry and advanced technology is his role as managing director and group chief executive of national oil group Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). India’s aggressive engagement with Al Jaber has transformed its energy relationship with the UAE from a buyer-supplier nature to an energy security partnership. Today, oil from ADNOC is stored in all of India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves, and for the first time an Indian company is drilling for oil in Abu Dhabi under a mutually agreed concession agreement. In terms of concrete results, often underestimated in India’s public discourse, the UAE is India’s biggest external success since the nuclear deal with the US. Abu Dhabi has pledged to invest $75 billion in India’s infrastructure sector, and through this commitment the inflow has made the UAE India’s seventh-largest investor in terms of foreign direct investment. The conflict in Ukraine has exacerbated such anxieties as the two countries develop food security strategies at a time when food supply is a major global concern. Under this strategy, UAE entities have announced to invest up to $7 billion in the Indian food industry over the next three years. The most significant diplomatic achievement in Modi’s regular dialogue with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan was the invitation of former Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj to speak at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Served as “Guest of Honor” at the Plenary Session 2019 in Abu Dhabi. The invitation ended a festering insult to India that had been festering since 1969, when senior cabinet minister and later president Fahruddin Ali Ahmed was rescinded to attend the founding of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation after arriving in Morocco for a conclave. Invitation to the Islamic Summit. Three years ago, Modi was awarded the UAE’s highest civilian award, the Order of Zayed, by then-President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The climactic moment of contact. The current President of the UAE was the guest of honor on India’s Republic Day 2017. So what is the next frontier for India-UAE cooperation? The two countries are currently working to overcome the inherent limitations of geographic and market asymmetries, and to upgrade bilateral engagement to the trilateral and plurilateral level. Two years after the signing of the Abraham Accords between the UAE and Israel, India has moved to leverage the UAE’s resources (financial and logistical) to serve the country’s huge market with Israel’s state-of-the-art advanced technology. One example is the Israeli company Eccopia’s decision last year to manufacture autonomous waterless robots in India and deploy them in the UAE for solar-powered cleaning in UAE projects. More such trilateral initiatives are in the pipeline. In September, as leaders from around the world gathered in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly, India used Sherpa meetings of the newly formed I2U2 group (India, Israel, UAE, US) to accelerate hybrid renewable energy projects Energy in Gujarat, including 300 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar capacity, complemented by battery storage systems. Israel is a world leader in solar technology and as part of the I2U2 process, the US Trade and Development Agency is conducting a feasibility study for the Gujarat project. The International Federation of India-Israel Chambers of Commerce is a new and unique tripartite initiative: its founder and chairman, Merzi Sodawaterwala, says it is the only bi-national business organization based in a third country, the UAE. The Third Country Initiative between the UAE and India identifies joint action in sub-Saharan Africa focusing on capacity building, trade and technology cooperation, and joint projects aimed at supporting the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. There are large Indian business communities across Africa, which the UAE’s financial resources will leverage to achieve this ambitious goal. On the sidelines of the 77th UN General Assembly, the first ministerial meeting of India, France and the UAE was held in New York in September to discuss trilateral initiatives in the Indo-Pacific region. The initiative will explore triangular cooperation in maritime security, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, connectivity and supply chain resilience. Trilateralism is the watchword for the next phase of cooperation between India and the UAE that began seven years ago. KP Nayar Strategic Analyst (kpnayar@gmail.com)<br />