April 6, 2019:

The award was conferred upon the Prime Minister for boosting relations between the Emirates & India.

Many see Prime Minister Narendra Modi being awarded the Zayed Medal, the highest civil honour of United Arab Emirates (UAE), as a pre-poll move boost image. However, the honour is the result of a long & concerted effort by the Modi government to forge strong ties with the Gulf countries India had ignored for long.

The award, which was conferred upon PM Modi for boosting relations between the Emirates & India, was given most likely for his outreach in the Gulf country.

PM Modi has visited 10 West Asian countries since 2014, more than his four predecessors combined. Despite large volumes of trade, & some eight million Indians remitting some $35 billion (2015 figure) back home each year from Gulf States, investments had remained negligible for decades. According to experts, things started changing under PM Modi.

Boost to India-UAE relations is part of India's larger Gulf project that includes even defence & counter-terrorism partnerships with the countries in the region. Due to his bold outreach, PM Modi is also seen to be playing a larger stabilising role in the Arab world. According to an expert , India's deeper demographic & geographic connections to the UAE & also contrasting closeness to Iran give Modi the platform to situate India as an ideal partner for stabilising the entire Gulf.

Behind PM Modi's award lie a number of major milestones in India-UAE relations during his term. Below are some of these milestones:

Strategic petroleum reserve UAE's Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) & its partner Saudi Aramco have jointly taken a 50 per cent stake in the planned $44 billion refinery-cum-petrochemical complex at Ratnagiri in Maharashtra. They have hired space at the underground strategic oil storages built at Mangalore & Padur in Karnataka. Aramco & ADNOC will together own 50 per cent of the planned project but a division between them has not yet been announced.

The remaining 50 per cent stake is held by state-owned Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd & Hindustan Petroleum. ADNOC had in February 2018 signed a pact to fill half of the 1.5 MT strategic oil storage at Mangalore. In November 2018, it signed a similar pact for Padur.

India has built 5.33 million tonne of emergency storage -- enough to meet its oil needs for 9.5 days — in underground rock caverns in Mangalore & Padur in Karnataka & Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. It has allowed foreign oil companies to store oil in the storages on condition that the stockpile can be used by New Delhi in case of an emergency.

Currency swap pact India & UAE signed currency swap agreement in December last year to boost trade & economic relations between the two countries. The agreement is expected to reduce the dependency on hard currencies like US dollar & give a push to the local currencies of the two nations. It will also reduce the impact of volatility in exchange rate arising from the dependency on a third currency. India & the UAE bilateral trade stands at $52 billion in 2017, with non-oil trade accounting for $34 billion. India’s FDI into the UAE last year was $6.6 billion while the UAE’s investment in India stood at $5.8 billion.

Investment in infrastructure In 2016, India & the UAE signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore opportunities for mobilisation of up to $75 billion long-term investment in the National Investment & Infrastructure Fund (NIIF). The objective of NIIF is to maximise economic impact mainly through infrastructure development in commercially viable projects, both greenfield & brownfield, including stalled projects, especially in especially in railways, ports, roads, airports & industrial corridors & parks. NIIF will solicit equity participation from strategic anchor partners.

Counter-terror cooperation The UAE has been deporting Indian-origin sympathisers of the Islamic State (IS). While UAE has worked with India to hand over terrorists & terror masterminds in the past decade, the counter-terror partnership gathered steam with the UAE choosing India as a key pillar of its Look East Policy amid growing disenchantment with traditional ally Pakistan. Over the past few years, Abu Dhabi has voluntarily shared information with Delhi on terror operatives & their networks.

Deportation of fugitives Extradition of Christian Michel, the alleged middleman in the Rs 3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal, in December last year was seen as a diplomatic victory for India. Two other accused in the case, Rajiv Saxena & Deepak Talwar, were also extradited from the UAE later. Commenting on Michel's extradition, UAE Ambassador to India Ahmed Al Banna said that due to the closeness in security ties some times things that did not happen in a year were done in one day. Referring to Modi's personal influence, he said, "The very important strategic ties and the personal touch in the relationship...that sometimes makes things, that don't happen in one year, happen in one day."

Oilfield acquisition In February last year, an Oil & Natural Gas Corp (ONGC)-led consortium of Indian state oil firms was awarded 10% stake in Abu Dhabi’s offshore Lower Zakum Concession for $600 million. This was the first time Indian firms had been given a stake in Abu Dhabi’s oil & gas field. The current production of this field is about 400,000 barrels of oil per day & Indian firms’ annual share shall be about 2 million metric tonnes. The field output is set to plateau at 450,000 barrels per day by 2025. ADNOC group CEO Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said, “This mutually beneficial partnership will create opportunities for ADNOC to increase its market share in the fast-growing Indian market. By delivering high quality crude to India's expanding refining industry, it will help India meet its growing energy demand.”

Agri investment The UAE & Saudi Arabia have decided to make India as a base for food security for the countries & plan to invest in both organic & food processing industries. Minister of commerce & industry & civil aviation Suresh Prabhu said in January that the government had identified which product would be exported from which district & each district would be divided into clusters for that. For example, Nasik has been identified for grapes, Nagpur for oranges & Ratnagiri for mangoes. The UAE & Saudi Arabia showed interest in investing in Indian agriculture after the new export policy removed restrictions on the export of both organic & horticultural products.

India's OIC invite India achieved a major diplomatic breakthrough with an invitation as a guest of honour to the meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) foreign ministers last month. Pakistan, a founding member of the OIC, announced that it would not attend the meeting if the invitation to India was not withdrawn. But the host, UAE, stood firm behind India. Fifty years ago, Pakistan was able to force India’s withdrawal from the OIC meet. But Pakistan failed this time due to India's strong ties with the UAE as well as several other Muslim nations. Experts said voice of moderation was gaining strength among OIC member states, with the UAE leading from the front.

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