India – UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)
Recently the India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) has completed one year.
The India-UAE CEPA came into force on May 1, 2022.
A traditional free trade agreement (FTA) focuses only on trade in goods. The CEPA, on the other hand, is more comprehensive and ambitious due to its comprehensive coverage of several sectors such as services, investment, intellectual property rights (PR), government procurement, disputes.
India has also entered into CEPA agreements with Japan and South Korea. CEPA has significantly impacted India’s bilateral trade with the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Between 21 April 2021 and March 2022, the trade between the two countries stood at US$ 72.9 billion. This has increased to US$ 84.5 billion between April 22, 2022 and March 2023.
Exports from India to UAE have increased from US$ 28 billion to US$ 31.3 billion.
Major sectors which saw significant growth in exports due to CEPA include-
- Mineral oil; electrical machinery (especially telephone equipment); gems and jewellery; Automobile etc.
- In terms of goods, the UAE eliminated tariffs on 97.4 percent of tariff lines covering 99 percent of imports from India.
- India immediately eliminated tariffs on more than 80 percent of its tariff lines covering 90 percent of its exports in value terms.
- India had offered 100 sub-sectors out of its 160 service sub-sectors to the UAE. UAE has offered 111 sub sectors to India.
Source – PIB
