Bilateral trade between India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has registered over 300 per cent increase in the last five years, the Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Anand Sharma, said.

The Minister said UAE is the top trading partner of India, representing about 60 per cent of India's export to GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries in 2009-10.

The total trade has increased from $12,945.87 million in 2005-06 to $43,469.50 million in 2009-10. The exports from India are up from $8,591.79 million in 2005-06 to $23,970.40 million in 2009-10. Similarly, imports from UAE are up from $4,354.08 million in 2005-06 to $19,499.10 million in 2009-10.

He said that there is lot of business and investment potential which can be exploited to the mutual advantage of both countries. The India-UAE Trade Policy Forum set up by the two countries to facilitate bilateral trade needs to be further strengthened.

See potential in tourism

During the interaction with his UAE counterpart Ms Sheikha Lubna Bint Al Qasimi, Minister of Foreign Trade, United Arab Emirates, both sides felt tourism is a key thrust area.

Another area with considerable scope for cooperation in tourism is construction and maintenance of hotels. Mr Sharma said that as UAE is focusing on knowledge-based industries and with India emerging as world leaders in space, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, and bio-technology, there is considerable scope for co-operation in technology transfer, research and development and for joint ventures.

Trade pacts soon

Meanwhile, on the sidelines of a CII event, the Minister said India will sign a comprehensive market opening trade pact with Japan on February 16 that would enable both the countries to reduce or eliminate duties on most of the goods and services.

The country would also ink the free trade pact with Malaysia in the same week.

Earlier, the Minister, while inaugurating the seventh edition of Eco-Products International Fair (EPIF 2011) and 19th International Engineering Trade Fair (IETF) here, said India is today the fifth largest wind energy producer in the world and eighth in terms of investments made in clean energy technologies.

On engineering exports, Mr Sharma said India was one of the fastest growing exports in the world at nearly 30 per cent, well above the global average of 13 per cent.

“Engineering exports are already touching $40 billion and I expect that it should be nearly $50 billion this year. We have remained mindful of the fact that we need to align government policies with the ambitious target of tripling India's engineering exports to $120 billion by 2015,” the Minister added.

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