{"id":37999,"date":"2025-02-25T18:57:47","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T13:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/?p=37999"},"modified":"2025-03-24T12:53:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T07:23:32","slug":"3-years-of-india-and-uae-cepa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/25-02-2025\/3-years-of-india-and-uae-cepa","title":{"rendered":"3 Years of India and UAE-CEPA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS2\/IR\/GS3\/Economy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The India-United Arab Emirates (UAE) Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) has completed <strong>three years of its signing in 2025.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>About Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>It is India&#8217;s first deep and full-fledged <strong>Free Trade Agreement (FTA)<\/strong> in the last decade.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It represents a strategic economic collaboration between two major trade partners and is expected to significantly enhance bilateral trade and investment flows.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Signed in <strong>February 2022, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/02-02-2023\/india-uae-cepa\">CEPA <\/a><\/strong>covers a wide range of sectors, including:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Trade in Goods &amp; Services<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Pharmaceuticals<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&nbsp;Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&nbsp;Investment &amp; Digital Trade<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Significance of India-UAE CEPA<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Boosting Bilateral Trade: <\/strong>Aims to increase trade in goods to USD 100 billion and trade in services to USD 15 billion over the next five years.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Strengthens economic ties with one of India\u2019s largest trade partners in the Gulf region.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Job Creation &amp; Economic Growth: <\/strong>Expected to generate over 1 million job opportunities for the Indian workforce through trade liberalization and improved market access.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Preferential Market Access for Indian Goods:<\/strong> Enhances market access for India\u2019s labour-intensive exports. Provides <strong>zero-duty market access for 90% of India&#8217;s exports to the UAE<\/strong>, improving India&#8217;s global competitiveness.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Strengthening UAE-India Trade Links in the Gulf Region:<\/strong> Expands Indian exporters\u2019 access to UAE\u2019s neighbouring markets, particularly the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, Africa, and Europe.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Brief overview of the UAE and India relations&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Political : <\/strong>India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) established diplomatic relations in 1972.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Multilateral Cooperation: <\/strong>India and the UAE are currently part of several plurilateral platforms such as I2U2 (India-Israel-UAE-USA) and UFI (UAE-France-India) Trilateral, etc. UAE was also invited as a Guest Country to the G-20 Summit.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Economic &amp; Commercial:<\/strong> India UAE trade, valued at US$ 180 million per annum in the 1970s, is today US$ 85 billion making UAE,<strong> India\u2019s third largest trading partner<\/strong> for the year 2022-23 after China and US.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>UAE is the second largest export destination of India (after the US) with an amount of nearly US$ 31.61 billion for the year 2022-23.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Defence cooperation:<\/strong> It&nbsp; is steered through a Joint Defence Cooperation Committee (JDCC) at the Ministry level, with the signing of Agreement on Defence Cooperation in 2003, which came into effect in 2004.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Nuclear Cooperation: <\/strong>India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed a <strong>Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for civil nuclear cooperation in 2024.<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In 2015, both countries had agreed to cooperate in <strong>\u201cpeaceful use of nuclear energy\u201d<\/strong>, the agreement is part of the UAE\u2019s policy of expanding investments into the nuclear energy sector.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Space Cooperation: <\/strong>&nbsp;Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the UAE Space Agency signed an MoU regarding cooperation in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes in 2016.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Indian Community:<\/strong> Indian expatriate community of approximately 3.5 million is the largest ethnic community in UAE constituting roughly about 35% of the country\u2019s population.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>NRI Remittances:<\/strong> The annual remittances made by the Indian community is 18% of the total remittances to India [2020-21 data].&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Challenges<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Trade Imbalances: <\/strong>India has a trade deficit with the UAE, primarily due to high oil imports from the UAE, which makes the economic relationship uneven despite growing non-oil trade.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Geopolitical Tensions in the Region:<\/strong> Political instability in the Middle East and the Gulf region affect bilateral relations, especially with India\u2019s strategic interests in the region.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Labor and Migration Issues: <\/strong>India is one of the largest sources of migrant labor in the UAE, and issues related to the welfare and rights of Indian workers have been a point of concern.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Foreign Policy of UAE: <\/strong>India\u2019s relations with countries like Iran and Pakistan sometimes complicate its relations with the UAE, which maintains different strategic priorities in the region.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Way Ahead<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Strengthen Economic and Trade Ties: <\/strong>Continue to focus on diversifying trade beyond oil, aiming for the USD 100 billion target for non-oil trade by 2030.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Joint Strategic and Security Cooperation:<\/strong> Enhance collaboration in counter-terrorism, regional security, and defense, focusing on the shared goal of a stable and peaceful Middle East.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Address Labor and Migrant Issues: <\/strong>Work towards improving the welfare and rights of Indian migrant workers in the UAE through better labor policies and protection mechanisms.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pib.gov.in\/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2104450\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>PIB<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The India-United Arab Emirates (UAE) Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) has completed three years of its signing in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37999"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39670,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37999\/revisions\/39670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}