Foreign investment: UAE business delegation visits Jammu and Kashmir

A month after a business delegation from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) visited Jammu and Kashmir to explore business opportunities, another delegation is arriving in the United Territory to take the initiative.

The delegation included Yusuff Ali, Chairman and Managing Director of Lulu Group, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of DP World Group, Mohammad Ali Alabbar, Founder and Managing Director of Emaar Properties, among others.

In addition, Royal Strategic Partners and WizzFinancial have also committed to industrial investments in Jammu and Kashmir, the source said, adding that total investment from the Middle East country has been fixed at around Rs 3,000 crore.

In early March, a business delegation from the Middle East made a four-day visit to Kashmir to understand the investment potential. Businessmen in the UAE are most interested in investing in infrastructure, information technology, hotels and food processing.

The UAE’s joining J&J for the first time in the past 74 years is seen as a nod to New Delhi’s policy of scrapping Article 370, which gave special powers to the erstwhile state. The UAE’s venture into J&J is also a signal to Pakistan, which has been promoting the argument that Kashmir is a problem that needs to be solved and that Muslim countries should support it.

Following the UAE’s investment, the J&J government is now targeting investments from other countries as well, after the groundbreaking ceremony and industrial investment in Jammu and Kashmir, sources said.

So far, the J&J government has allocated or is in the process of allocating a total of 19,125 kanals (2390.6 acres) of land to 1105 applicants in the Jammu division with a total investment of Rs 17,968 crore, similarly, in the Kashmir Valley, 19,897 canal (2,497.1 acres) of land has been allocated or is being finally allocated to 3,339 applicants for a total investment of Rs 24,187 crore, sources said.

Based on the responses received by the government of Jammu and Kashmir at home and abroad, the government expects the investment to exceed Rs 70,000 crore. The government had organized a real estate summit in Jammu in December and proposed a similar summit in Kashmir in May to discuss investments in the real estate sector.

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