By Aroonim Bhuyan, IANS,
Dubai : India would like investments from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) into the subcontinent’s infrastructure sector, particularly in the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC).
“UAE investors are very keen on the Indian market and we would like to have them investing in the infrastructure sector,” India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath told reporters on the sidelines of a lunch in his honour the Emirates Bankers Forum hosted here Thursday.
“We would like to draw investments, particularly in the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor,” said the minister, now on a two-day official visit to the UAE.
The DMIC is a 1,483-km-long project that would include six mega investment regions of 200 sq km each.
The project, approved by the Indian cabinet last year, will run through the states of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra, on either side of the proposed Delhi-Mumbai dedicated rail freight corridor.
“We expect around $92 billion to be invested in the DMIC,” the minister said.
He said India was not looking at big ticket investment from the UAE.
“We are more interested in investments in the range of $25-$50 million, which are already happening,” he said.
Trade between India and the UAE stood at $20 billion in 2006-07.
In order to boost bilateral investment, Kamal Nath said, the India-UAE Investment Council would meet within the next six months.
The council was formed during the visit of Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum to India last year.
The council is headed by Kamal Nath on the Indian side and UAE’s Minister for Economy Sultan Al Mansoori on the Gulf nation’s side.
The minister also said that a free trade agreement (FTA) between India and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is also expected soon.
“We expect to make substantial progress on the FTA front this year,” Nath told IANS.
The GCC comprises the six Gulf nations of UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar.
Stating that there has been a slowdown in the talk for an India-GCC FTA, he said: “But this is more because of time constraints rather than content issues. There is no issue with the contents of the proposed FTA.”
The minister described his current visit to the UAE as a follow-up to the “highly successful visit of Sheikh Mohammed to India last year”.