Abu Dhabi Crown Prince to visit India in September

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khalid to Visit India on September 8

Sheikh Khalid, who is expected to arrive in India on September 8, will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the country’s top leadership during his visit.

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Khalid bin Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, effectively next in line to the leadership of the United Arab Emirates, is set to visit India early next month to strengthen trade and strategic ties, people familiar with the matter said. Thursday.

Sheikh Khalid, who is expected to arrive in India on September 8, will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the country’s top leadership during the visit, which will focus on building future ties for decades to come, the people cited above said.

While no deals are likely to be signed during the visit, the two sides are expected to reaffirm their commitment to building closer and stronger ties in areas ranging from trade to security, the people said on condition of anonymity.

The visit, which has yet to be announced by either side, will follow a string of high-profile visits from both sides in recent years. Modi has visited the UAE seven times since 2015 as his government has worked hard to forge closer partnerships with major West Asian powers.

MBZ named his son Sheikh Khalid, 42, as crown prince of Abu Dhabi in March 2023, making him his successor as president of the second-largest Arab economy. Since then, Sheikh Khalid has rarely traveled abroad, having visited Malaysia in May last year.

“The visit is about the future of this strategic relationship. “The relationship between India and the UAE is now on a very strong footing and it will be about building on that foundation, looking to the coming decades and forging closer ties with the future leadership of the Emirates,” said one of the people quoted above.

Abu Dhabi has held the presidency of the UAE since Sheikh Mohammed’s father founded the federation in 1971. Abu Dhabi is the political capital of the federation of seven emirates.

There is a $85 billion rise in FY2023 following the implementation of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between India and the United Arab Emirates in 2022. The UAE is India’s third-largest economic partner and its second-biggest export destination, behind the US and China. India is the UAE’s second-biggest commercial partner, accounting for 14% of non-oil exports and 9% of all foreign trade.

According to official figures, non-oil trade between India and the United Arab Emirates is expected to hit $100 billion in value over the next five years.

With foreign direct investment (FDI) of $16.67 billion from April 2000 to September 2023, the UAE is the seventh-largest investor in India.

Another critical factor in bilateral relations is the presence of 3.5 million Indian nationals or 30% of the population in the UAE. Indians are the largest expatriate community in the UAE and their remittances are a major source of foreign income.

The visit takes place during a tense period in the relationship between the senior leaderships of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, another country in West Asia with which India has developed close commercial and strategic ties in the last ten years.

In 2020, MBZ played a key role in restoring power in the West when the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain established diplomatic relations with Israel. Meanwhile, the UAE strengthened ties with China and Russia and engaged with Iran.