The India-UAE Business Forum will kick off tomorrow in Mumbai and explore mutually beneficial trade, investment, and partnership opportunities.

Organised by the UAE’s Ministry of Economy in collaboration with the UAE Embassy in New Delhi and India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the event will gather government officials, business leaders, industrialists, and entrepreneurs as part of bilateral efforts to leverage the opportunities created by the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which came into force in May 2022.

Under the theme “Beyond CEPA: Innovation and Future-Ready Economies”, the forum will focus on the potential of healthcare, biotechnology, renewable energy, sustainability, AI, logistics and supply chains, and agricultural technology.

Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of State for Foreign Trade, said, “The India-UAE Business Forum is another important opportunity to bring our business leaders together to discuss areas of mutual benefit and develop the networks that will support our respective economic growth and diversification objectives.

“The forum will build on the consistent rise in bilateral non-oil trade, which reached US$28.2 billion in the first six months of 2024 – a 9.8 percent increase on the same period in 2023 and set against a marked decline in trade growth around the world in H1 2024.”

The figures underline the benefits of the UAE-India CEPA, which has proved to be a major driver of industrial output, employment, and global competitiveness, and provide the platform for greater collaboration in the months and years ahead.”

The forum’s panels reflect the breadth of opportunity in front of the private sector. They include “Healthcare and Biotechnology: Pioneering the Future of Medicine”, which will focus on ways the UAE and India can leverage the CEPA to develop partnerships in biotechnology, genomic medicine, AI-driven healthcare, digital health, and pharmaceutical research.

The session on AI and emerging technologies will seek to explore how these tools can be developed and the areas that can benefit from them, while the session “Renewable Energy and Sustainability: Pioneering the Green Revolution” will help showcase the UAE’s pioneering work in delivering wind, solar, and geothermal solutions across the developing world.

Other sessions discuss opportunities in logistics and agricultural technology and sustainable farming practices.

The UAE-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement was the first part of the UAE’s new foreign trade agenda that sought to strengthen ties with strategically important nations worldwide.

Following its implementation in May 2022, businesses in both countries benefit from reducing or removing tariffs on more than 80 percent of products, removing unnecessary trade barriers, and harmonising customs regulations and processes.