India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have agreed to decrease import taxes on the bulk of Indian exports to the nation. The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) is the Narendra Modi government’s first significant trade agreement after taking office in 2014.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and UAE Economy Minister Abdulla bin Touq Al-Marri inked the agreement in New Delhi. While it reduces import levies on a wide variety of items, the government anticipates it to enhance exports of gemstones and jewels, as well as clothes, to the UAE, and to increase overall trade to $100 billion over the next five years.
After the United States and China, the UAE is India’s third-largest trading partner internationally. Bilateral commerce between the two countries was valued at $43.3 billion in 2020-21, with hundreds of products transferred. The two nations’ commerce was anticipated to be $59 billion in 2019-20, the pre-pandemic year.
The agreement was highlighted at the India-UAE virtual summit earlier in the day, which was hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan, Deputy Supreme Commander of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Armed Forces and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.
Negotiations on the agreement were finished in record time, with the arrangement set to be officially launched in September 2021. The newest agreement is an “early harvest” component of a much larger trade and economic cooperation agreement that will be signed in the future. An early harvest trade agreement is one in which both sides agree on a set of deliverables that are relatively easy to achieve.
