The investment commitment of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in India could top $100 billion from the earlier stated goal of $75 billion and on Monday both sides discussed in detail about setting up food parks in India to exclusively serve UAE markets, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said.
“We have also reviewed the progress in the $75 billion investment that was planned from UAE to India, which when we discussed today, will fructify to nearly $100 billion investment in infrastructure, manufacturing, public markets and various other forms of investment,” the minister told reporters after the 12th meeting of India-UAE High Level Task Force on Investments.
The “Food Corridor” that the discussions centred on will involve investment of $2 billion to set up food processing units that will make products suitable for the UAE palette and food park logistics that will be required to move the products to UAE. “The UAE has made an initial commitment of $2 billion. These investments will happen over the next two to two-and-half years, he said. The discussion on the food sector investments have been going on for a while now; they are progressing faster and the background work is largely completed.
“We have agreed to set up a small working group between the central government, the state governments involved and the UAE to take forward this establishment of the food corridor between the two countries on a mission mode basis,” he said.
UAE is the seventh largest with a share of 3% in the total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) received in India, with cumulative investment of approximately $19 Billion from April 2000- June 2024.
“UAE investment comes through two mediums. One is directly from the UAE which is in the region of about $20 billion. They are also co-investing through several other funds across the world. All the Blackstones and KKRs have a large degree of investments from sovereign wealth funds of UAE which then come to India through the large investment houses,” Goyal said.
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the UAE’s largest sovereign wealth fund and one of the largest such funds in the world with assets of over $950 billion, has commenced its India operations after obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals and opening its office in the GIFT City. The office is expected to drive further intensification of ADIA’s investment activities in India.
India also announced that it will open a trade and investment promotion office in UAE which will be a joining effort of Invest India, Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC), Directorate General of foreign Trade (DGFT) and National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (NICDC) which is setting up 20 smart industrial cities across India.