India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry and UAE’s Ministry of Industry & Advanced Technology signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cooperation in the field of industries and advanced technologies, on October 5, in Abu Dhabi. The MoU was signed during the Eleventh meeting of the UAE-India High Level Joint Task Force on Investments (‘the Joint Task Force’), co-chaired by Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Managing Director of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), and Union Minister Piyush Goyal.
Speaking to the media, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said, “We have signed a MoU with the UAE on advanced technologies, on collaborative research, on working towards strengthening the intellectual property systems, on sharing of science and technology policies, and working towards harmonisation of standards, legal metrology, conformity assessment, accreditation.”
Both sides also signed an agreement for National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) international arm to partner with UAE for developing a Domestic Card Stack similar to RuPay. The agreement creates a strategic partnership to develop the UAE’s Domestic Card Scheme (DCS). Talking about another agreement between two countries, union minister Goyal said, “An agreement between the NPCI and the United Arab Emirate by which they will be providing technology and support to UAE to implement the RuPay card system in UAE.” He further said that with this means the UAE cards can function as RuPay cards in India, allowing Indian RuPay cardholders to use their cards in the UAE.
According to the minister, this marks the global expansion of the RuPay card, paving the way for numerous future collaborations and significantly enhancing economic integration between India and the UAE.
The union minister expressed that both the signed MoUs will help the Indian businesses, and allow to expand India’s trade in UAE, which will help attract more investments from UAE to India. “We have also had extensive discussions around creating food parks in India, creating industrial parks both in India and in the UAE. I have just completed discussions with the Reserve Bank and the Central Bank…In all, this 11th high-level task force on investments has been full of outcomes. I am very confident that this will set in force a new era of partnership between the two countries, of expanding the scope and the width of investments from the UAE to India and certainly create millions of new jobs in India,” the minister added.
The minister further conveyed that the UAE’s leaders are keenly interested in investing in diverse sectors such as infrastructure, education, healthcare, and food processing. Additionally, UAE also sees great potential in the airline sector and the broader aviation ecosystem. Minister Goyal also expressed his expectation of witnessing significant investments in public markets, manufacturing, services, and various infrastructure projects in the near future. He added that while they used to say “the sky is the limit” in the past, he believes that now, “even the moon is not the limit.”