On February 18th, union minister of commerce and industry, Piyush Goyal met with a delegation from the United Arab Emirates in a bilateral meeting and signed the historic comprehensive economic partnership agreement. The partnership of two countries has resulted in joint work on several agreements and memorandums of understanding in a variety of areas including the economy, climate change, advanced technologies, low carbon hydrogen development and investment, food security, financial services and education cooperation.
Both India and The United Arab Emirates have agreed to establish an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in the UAE as a part of their trade agreement. This will be the first time an IIT has been established outside of the country.
In India, there are now 23 IITs that offer B.Tech and medical programmes which are governed and regulated by the Institutes of Technology Act, 1961.
The two countries will also establish an India-UAE cultural council to assist and promote cultural initiatives, cross-cultural exchanges and exhibits among other things according to the agreement.
Both of the countries have also committed to assisting each other’s clean energy initiatives and to forming a cooperative hydrogen task force to scale up technologies, mainly green hydrogen production.
They will also work together on essential technologies to promote E-businesses and E-payment solutions that help start-ups from both the countries which include Interalia, Fintech, Edutech, logistics and supply chain, health care, AgriTech, chip design and green energy.
The free trade agreement that India and UAE inked on Friday will lower tariffs on 80% of commodities and duty-free access to 90% of India’s exports to the UAE.
The pact which is anticipated to take effect in about 60 days is estimated to increase annual bilateral commerce to 100 billion dollars in five years up from roughly 60 billion dollars now.
Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal and UAE minister of economy, Abdulla bin Touq Al-Marri signed the agreement after 80 days of discussions.
India has also begun the official FTA discussions with the United Kingdom to reach an early harvest trade deal in the coming months.
Also published on Medium.