Grateful for PM Modi, President Zayed for driving relationship, says UAE Ambassador

UAE Ambassador to India, Abdulnasser Alshaali, underlined the strengthening of economic ties between India and the UAE, highlighting key initiatives such as the UAE-India CEPA Council, which aims to boost bilateral trade and entrepreneurship.

In an interview to ANI, Ambassador Alshaali said, “It’s quite important for us as UAE and CEPA Council doing business events and business roundtables across India”.

According to its official website, the UAE-India CEPA Council (UICC) was launched on the sidelines of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit on January 10, 2024. The UICC is a joint UAE and Indian government initiative aimed at ensuring that the two countries’ business communities fully leverage the benefits of the UAE-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (UAE-India CEPA), which came into effect on May 1, 2022.

Ambassador Alshaali said, “It makes a lot of sense that we engage with entrepreneurs, especially women entrepreneurs. Back in the UAE, we have 23,000 women managing USD 30 billion, and it’s not any less than that when it comes to India”.

Lauding the achievements of Indian women in business sector, he said, “You have women working in different sectors doing great stuff. They have implemented great ideas and turned into very successful businesses and it’s quite important that all of this work, those businesses are appreciated and that they are taken into consideration when we talk bilateral relationship, bilateral trade and expanding and enhancing the economic relationship between the two countries”.

Speaking about India-UAE ties, Ambassador Alshaali said, “It is going great, especially with the UAE CEPA Council, because that’s the main focus”.

He noted, “If we really want to see growth happening in terms of numbers, the focus on small and medium enterprises and on entrepreneurs is important and is tremendous in making that happen”.

On Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in strengthening India-UAE ties, the Ambassador remarked, “You have to think about the fact that PM Modi is very fond of the UAE and the country’s leadership, and that naturally does give whatever that we’re doing very high momentum in terms of what we do- the engagements, meetings, high-level visits that you see between the two countries.”

Concluding his remarks on the India-UAE relationship, he said, “The UAE-India relationship is a historic one and it’s an ancient one”. He noted that the people-to-people relationship when it comes to aspects like culture and doing business together extends to hundreds of years ago. This will always be the case. We are very grateful that today there is a leader like PM Modi and Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who are driving this relationship even further.”