UAE and Indian Officials Conclude First Joint Committee Meeting on UAE-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

His Excellency Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of State for Foreign Trade, met His Excellency Shri Piyush Goyal, Honorable Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, and Textiles in New Delhi. Both ministers addressed a joint press conference on the successful conclusion of the first meeting of the UAE-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) Joint Committee. Both countries agreed to set a target of USD 100 billion in non-oil trade by 2030, an ambitious increase over the USD 48 billion in non-oil trade at present.
The two sides reviewed bilateral trade under the CEPA and agreed to operationalize the established committees, sub-committees, and technical council under the CEPA and launch a new sub-committee on Trade in Services. Additionally, it was agreed that the mutual exchange of preferential trade data would take place on a quarterly basis in order to ensure effective monitoring of the CEPA. Both sides also exchanged views on World Trade Organization (WTO) matters of mutual interest and the 13th Ministerial Conference of the WTO (MC13), which is scheduled to be held in Abu Dhabi during the week of 26 February 2024.
Both sides emphasized the importance of optimizing the CEPA for the private sector by establishing a UAE-India CEPA Council (UICC), which will focus on facilitating export-oriented B2B collaboration for SMEs, MSMEs, and start-ups across the UAE and India.