Kamal Nath discusses bilateral trade with UAE minister

Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath has discussed mechanisms for development of the economic partnership between India and the UAE with UAE Foreign Trade Minister Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, it was announced in Dubai on Monday.

The two sides discussed various potential growth opportunities in the UAE and India and the possibility of holding meetings between companies of the two countries to explore investment opportunities and strike joint investment and commercial venture deals, a statement released by UAE official news agency Wam said.

Sheikha Lubna stressed on the keenness of the UAE to boost trade and investment ties with India in all fields, considering the fact that India was the UAE's top trading partner in 2010.

Kamal Nath said the existing investment opportunities in the two countries will pave the way for broader cooperation for the private sectors and businesses in both countries.

The volume of mutual trade between the UAE and India during 2010 stood at 163 billion dirhams, while trade in the first quarter of 2011 amounted to 69 billion dirhams, a growth of 68 per cent year-on-year.

The value of the UAE's exports to India was 10 billion dirhams in the first quarter of 2011, a 12 per cent growth rate year-on-year, while its imports totalled 36 billion dirhams, a growth of 69

per cent.

The value of Indian products re-exported by the UAE stood at 23 billion dirhams, a 100 per cent growth compared to the first quarter of 2010.

Speaking on the occasion, Kamal Nath said that a new world order is emerging on the global economic front, as the gravity of economic growth has shifted to the East.

"The continued and deepening financial and fiscal crisis in the West is a sign that those economies can no longer carry the world. The Western economies are too saturated and too leveraged to sustain economic growth for either themselves or for the rest of the world," he said.

"The world needs to realign its compass as the gravity of economic growth has shifted to the East," he added.

Nath said that the Arab world and in particular, the UAE, can be on the winning side of this transition, as it has a huge location advantage, being situated at the junction of the new growth continents of Asia and Africa.