DUBAI: External Affairs Minister meets Foreign Minister of UAE

DUBAI: External Affairs Minister, Dr. S Jaishankar met Foreign Minister of UAE, His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan recently at Hyderabad House. The meeting was also attended by UAE MOS for International Cooperation, H.E. Ms. Reem Al Hashimy and Foreign Secretary, Shri Vinay Kwatra. EAM hosted a lunch in the honour of UAE FM and accompanying delegation.

EAM and UAE FM reviewed the continuous progress in bilateral relations across different domains, since the 14th Joint Commission Meeting held by them in September 2022. They appreciated the progress in bilateral relationship, especially in trade, investment, consular matters, education and food security.

Both Ministers noted that bilateral trade has shown appreciable growth under the CEPA Agreement which came into force on May 1, 2022. India’s exports to UAE between April-September 2022 were about USD 16 billion which was an increase of 24% y-to-y while India’s imports increased 38% to reach USD 28.4 billion in the same time period.

On food security cooperation under I2U2, a delegation led by CEO of ADQ visited India in October 2022 to take discussions forward with different stakeholders. IIT Delhi has held meetings with its Abu Dhabi partner, ADEK for establishing IIT Delhi campus in Abu Dhabi. The meetings of Joint Committee on Consular Affairs and JWG on Manpower were held in October and November 2022.

Both sides have also taken forward their discussions on other areas of cooperation including energy, healthcare, defence, space, climate change, skills, fin-tech and startups. CIM and ADIA Chairman held a successful meeting of the High Level Task Force on Investments in October 2022 in which the entire range of trade and investment cooperation was discussed.

Both Ministers also exchanged views on the global situation and various regional hotspots as well as the cooperation between the two countries in UN Security Council.