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New Delhi : UAE Ambassador to India Abdulnasser Alshaali said India and UAE are discussing using rupee settlement mechanism for trade. The UAE is India’s third largest trading partner after the US and China. In an interview, Alshaali said that the GCC-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which is expected to start negotiations next year, may feature some aspects of the India-UAE FTA and that the two countries are also negotiating on defense technology. Edited excerpt:
Can you give us an update on the current state of India-UAE relations?
Sometime around seven or eight years ago, bilateral relations began to take a different turn, highlighted by an increase in the number of high-level visits between the two countries. The relationship has been good, and this visit has created its own momentum. The two sides signed the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and formed platforms such as I2U2 (Israel-India-US-UAE). The UAE was also invited by India to participate in the G20 as a guest country for the second year as an independent guest country.
India has been pushing for rupee settlements between New Delhi and Abu Dhabi. Can you tell us a little bit about this event?
Discussions are ongoing, so details have been shared between the two parties and proposals have been submitted to the technical team. What I’m talking about is just a typical currency swap settlement between two countries using their own currencies.
There are rumors that the UAE-CEPA agreement could be extended to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Please leave a comment.
All I know is that there is a separate GCC track in the FTA where they are working on aspects of the UAE-India CEPA that can be imported into the UAE-GCC FTA. Because we are highly integrated with the GCC market, having the GCC-India Free Trade Agreement means it will complement the CEPA that we have, and then this will allow us to trade between GCC countries and all industries within the region Favorable open competition.
What about defense cooperation?
There are already negotiations underway. Two to three months ago, we had a high-level delegation visit. The market is underutilized or fully developed. From our side, representatives of the Ministry of Defense here, and someone from the agency that oversees our defense industry, they met with their Indian counterparts. Discussions about co-production of defense technology are at a very early stage.
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