India, UAE explore mutually beneficial methods to facilitate investments

Dubai, Oct 2: India and the UAE on Saturday explored mutually beneficial methods and incentives to facilitate investments from the United Arab Emirates' sovereign investment entities in key priority sectors in New Delhi. Both the countries also noted the importance of concluding the negotiation process of amending the UAE and India's long-standing Bilateral Investment Treaty as soon as possible.

These issues came up for discussion during a meeting between Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Member of the Executive Council of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce and Industry. Both co-chaired the ninth meeting of the UAE-India High Level Joint Task Force on Investments here.

"At the meeting, discussions were also held on exploring mutually beneficial methods and incentives to facilitate further investment from UAE sovereign investment entities in key priority sectors in India...both sides agreed to continue to focus on ways of providing tax incentives to certain UAE sovereign investment entities," an official statement said.

Given the importance of air transport in facilitating bilateral ties and people-to-people connections, India and the UAE agreed that their respective civil aviation authorities should continue to work together on a priority basis, for their mutual benefit, to ensure the speedy normalisation of air transport operations. The statement also said the progress of ongoing discussions for the India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement was reviewed.

The involvement from the UAE Special Desk within Invest India in expediting the resolution of both legacy issues and current difficulties experienced by the UAE firms and banks in India were discussed. "Both sides agreed to continue coordination and cooperation at the highest official levels for the early resolution of these issues," it said.

Commenting on the ninth meeting of the Joint Task Force, Al Nahyan said it is an important platform for dialogue between the two countries, raising new opportunities for trade and investment, and removing bottlenecks to further cooperation.

"Looking ahead, India and the UAE share ambitious goals to expand trade and investment activities between our countries, and the Joint Task Force will continue to play an important role in achieving these objectives," he said. Goyal said given the strong growth prospects of the Indian economy, "we look forward to increased investment from the UAE in diverse sectors of India".

The Joint Task Force was established in 2013 as a key forum for promoting economic ties between the UAE and India. PTI