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India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will be signing a civil nuclear cooperation agreement during the visit of Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to India from February 10 - 12.
“We will be signing an agreement on nuclear energy cooperation. This will be on peaceful use of nuclear energy. There will be setting up of research and development centres,” UAE Ambassador to India Ahmed Al Banna said here on Monday.
The agreement will be signed on February 11 when the Crown Prince will be holding a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi here.
UAE has signed similar pacts for peaceful use of nuclear power with UK, Russia, France, US, Japan and South Korea among others.
Apart from the civil nuclear deal, a total of 16 agreements will be signed during his visit that is expected to result in “immense investments” across sectors such as IT, infrastructure, aerospace, financial services, renewable energy and railways, Al Banna said.
“We are looking at signing 16 pacts, out of which 12 have been finalised and are ready to be signed … These pacts will lead to huge investment portfolios in the sectors of nuclear energy, renewable energy, oil and gas,” he said.
Al Banna added that the Crown Prince will be accompanied by seven ministers and a high-powered business delegation consisting of 90-100 captains of UAE industry.
Investment symposium
The Crown Prince, who is on his maiden official visit to India, will also be meeting President Pranab Mukherjee. He will be travelling to Mumbai to attend an investment symposium – Invest in India – that will see business-to-business collaboration.
India has been seeking UAE’s sovereign wealth funds and pension funds to invest in the country’s National Infrastructure and Investment Fund.
Al Banna said the India-UAE joint task force on NIIF met last month to work out the modalities on how the investments will be channelized.
UAE has already committed investments worth $75 billion through the establishment of UAE-India Infrastructure Investment Fund.
This was promised during the visit of Modi to UAE in August last year, the first visit ever in last 34 years by an Indian PM.
During PM’s visit there, both sides also elevated their bilateral relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership.
Al Banna also said UAE seeks to conclude the ongoing talks on the India-Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Free Trade Agreement (FTA). But, he said, the FTA has to be between India and GCC and not with individual countries constituting the GCC - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman.
UAE is third-largest trading partner with two-way trade reaching nearly $60 billion in 2014-15.
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