India-UAE relations will become stronger, many important issues from gold TRQ to food safety were discussed.

Talks have intensified to further strengthen trade relations between India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Both the countries have discussed in detail on increasing facilities like market access, data sharing and free trade agreements. On Thursday, the Commerce Ministry informed that these talks took place in the meeting of the Joint Committee of India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). CEPA is considered similar to Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which plays an important role in making trade easier and faster between the two countries.

Discussion on data exchange and gold TRQ

In the meeting, a complete assessment of the progress made so far after the implementation of CEPA was made. Both sides discussed in detail important issues like market access, data exchange, gold TRQ (tariff rate quota) allocation, anti-dumping cases, services, rules of origin and BIS licensing. UAE was told by India that now the allocation of Gold TRQ will be done through a transparent and competitive bidding process, which will make the trade more open and clear.

Special attention on pharma sector

In this meeting, special attention was also given to the pharma sector. Both countries agreed to strengthen regulatory cooperation related to medicines and medical products. Apart from this, there were also discussions on removing the issues related to Certificate of Origin, simplifying the processes and finalizing a new agreement on food safety and technical standards between APEDA of India and the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment of UAE.

Trade between India and UAE is continuously increasing. Bilateral trade is expected to cross the $100 billion mark in 2024-25, which is about 19.6% more than the previous year. The special thing is that both the countries have set a target of increasing non-oil and non-precious metals trade alone to 100 billion dollars by 2030. To achieve this goal, these meetings are considered important for increasing cooperation between the two countries. Overall, the brisk and positive talks between India and UAE indicate that the two countries will come closer in terms of trade, investment and technological cooperation in the coming years.