India and the United Arab Emirates will set up a multi-billion dollar fund to invest in Indian infrastructure projects and cooperate in producing military equipment, space technology and nuclear energy, officials said.
Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyan Jaishankar announced the plans at the end of a two-day visit to the UAE by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which focused on both business ties and national security, Arabian Business reported.
India is eager for foreign capital and technology to develop its economy while the UAE, one of the richest of the Persian Gulf Arab energy exporters, wants to use overseas investments to diversify its asset base beyond oil.
The fund will aim to raise $75 billion to build railways, ports, roads and other projects in India, Jaishankar said. He did not give a time frame, say how such a huge sum would be financed or describe how the fund would be structured.
A joint statement by the two governments said the UAE would help India develop strategic petroleum reserves in addition to its upstream and downstream petroleum sectors.
It set a target of increasing bilateral trade by 60% in the next five years and pledged cooperation in developing and launching satellites, as well as peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
The governments will “cooperate in manufacture of defense equipment in India”, the statement said without elaborating.
Fighting Terrorism
Both countries have been in conflict with militants, and the statement undertook to increase cooperation in counter-terrorism operations and intelligence sharing.
Modi said India had repeatedly fallen victim to acts of terrorism and it was time global powers unite to tackle the issue.
His comments come days ahead of reconciliation talks between India and Pakistan, where New Delhi is likely to present its neighbor with a dossier of evidence of its involvement in recent militant attacks.
“Good terrorism, bad terrorism, will not work,” Modi said, addressing a crowd of 40,000 people, including Indians working in the Persian Gulf Arab state. The UAE has an Indian community of over 2.5 million people.
Strategic Partnership
The announcement of a strategic partnership between India and the United Arab Emirates is being seen as a significant elevation of ties as well as a sign of India’s shift in the region. Equally it is a shift in foreign policy where security and terrorism take precedence over diplomacy in driving India’s interests.
In terms of the region, the partnership is unique. But it is one of more than a dozen partnerships India has forged in the past decade including with the big economies of Russia, US, France, UK, Germany and Japan but also with smaller neighbors like Afghanistan and Mongolia.
