India, UAE discuss possibilities of bilateral trade in national currencies

India and the UAE Tuesday discussed ways to enhance bilateral investments in key sectors such as food security, manufacturing, infrastructure, energy and technology.

Both sides also discussed the creation of a mechanism for carrying out bilateral trade in national currencies. Referring to the ongoing discussions between Reserve Bank of India and Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates on Unified Payment Interface (UPI) as a common digital payments platform.

In the India-UAE joint task force on investment co-chaiered by Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal along with Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, member of the executive council of Emirate of Abu Dhabi, it was agreed that the two sides will explore setting up efficient and integrated single window solutions and virtual trade corridors to reduce costs and time involved in trade and investment related procedures.

This was the first meeting of the joint task force since the signing of the India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and unveiling of the Joint UAE-India Vision Statement in February.

CEPA is a major trade agreement set to transform bilateral economic, trade and investment ties and propel economic growth. Both these historic landmarks provide a clear roadmap for continued strengthening of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the two countries at an accelerated pace.

The two delegations reviewed the status of the negotiations of the India-UAE bilateral investment treaty. Twelve rounds of negotiations have been conducted until now.

As a means of encouraging increased investment flows by UAE sovereign investment entities into India, the two sides reviewed UAE’s request with respect to providing tax incentives to certain UAE sovereign investment entities under existing UAE-India tax treaty, and India’s response to provide the same under the existing domestic tax laws of India.