The bilateral ties of India and UAE have a very strong momentum which is helping in implementation of the agreements signed between the two countries, India’s envoy to the UAE Navdeep Singh Suri has said. Suri said that “very soon” there might be an announcement about the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority entering into a formal relationship with the National Infrastructure Investment Fund. “I don’t want to pre-empt this and you will see the details as they emerge,” he told reporters.

“Our endeavour really is to translate many of those intentions into actual investments and projects. To that extent, the end of November we have the high-level task force on investment, led by Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu from our side and by Emirati businessman and managing director of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed from the UAE side,” Suri said.

According to Suri, they are bringing companies that have projects to offer. “Part of our dialogue is that even as we try to resolve the erstwhile or legacy issues, we also take a forward-looking approach and to move beyond just talking in general terms about investment, to have a situation where somebody is offering a highway project or an airport, or a metro or a renewable energy plant or a whole lot of other different sectors,” he said.

World Skills Summit

Earlier this week, over 100 delegates from India participated in the World Skills Summit in Abu Dhabi. “We have competitors participating in different arenas. And we have delegates from both CII(Confederation of Indian Industry) and FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry). We have officials from half a dozen state governments and the central government,” Suri said.

Chief minister of Andhra Pradesh N Chandrababu Naidu who is coming with a strong delegation, including a couple of ministers,” he said. He is going to have meetings at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Mubadala and at some of the other potential investors to make a pitch for investment projects, he said. This will followed by the entire FICCI leadership coming to the UAE for their annual retreat.

“On November 29, we have the India-UAE strategic dialogue, which will be followed by the India-UAE Partnership Summit, which we are working with ASSOCHAM (The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India). For this we have high-level participation both from India and the UAE,” said Ambassador Suri. According to him, this momentum has built for two reasons beginning with Dubai and now Abu Dhabi positioning themselves as hubs where major conferences and events take place.

“Over 100 Indian companies participated in four different segments of GITEX (Gulf Information Technology Exhibition). The bilateral relations that now have very strong momentum in terms of ministerial visits and in terms of actually implementing many of the agreements that have been signed between the two countries,” he added.