NEW DELHI: India has announced plans to strengthen its Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with the UAE, aiming to boost non-oil bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2030, amid changing global trade dynamics and sharp increases in US tariffs.
UAE Foreign Trade Minister Thani Al-Zeyoudi visited India over the weekend for talks with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and business leaders in Mumbai.
“The meeting reviewed the progress made under CEPA and reaffirmed the shared vision of expanding bilateral trade towards the target of USD 100 billion non-oil, non-precious metals trade by 2030,” India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in a statement on Monday.
“Discussions included collaboration in emerging sectors such as renewable energy, digital infrastructure, supply chain resilience, and healthcare.”
The ministers co-chaired meetings with representatives of the pharmaceutical and food sectors.
“In the pharma sector, key issues were discussed in light of evolving geopolitical challenges,” the ministry said.
“Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al-Zeyoudi underlined that despite global turbulence, the India–UAE partnership has emerged as a resilient driver of growth.”
The announcement to boost UAE-India ties under CEPA comes as many sectors in India look for ways to offset the impact of the Donald Trump administration’s recent 50 percent tariff hike on Indian goods — expected to significantly slow India’s exports to the US, which has been a top market.
In effect since May 1, 2022, the UAE-India CEPA has reduced tariffs on about 80 percent of all goods and provided zero-duty access to 90 percent of Indian exports.
Bilateral non‑oil trade reached $65 billion in 2024, according to UAE Ministry of Economy data.
Non-oil exports from India to the UAE reached $27.4 billion in the financial year 2023–24, marking an average annual growth of 25.6 percent since the CEPA came into effect. The surge has been led by sectors such as gems and jewelry, electrical machinery, chemicals, and smartphones.
“We are looking to diversify our trade basket, our products and also looking at important markets in the Gulf and Middle East. We can work on alternative markets for our products,” Manish Mohan, senior director for the Gulf and Middle East at Confederation of Indian Industry, told Arab News.
“UAE is a very important gateway to Africa, Europe and Central Asia … We have already achieved a great success in CEPA, and we are looking at deeper investment and economic opportunities.”
