India-UAE CEPA to boost bilateral trade ties
Sep 25, 2022
New Delhi [India], September 25 : The India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) which came into effect on May 1 is already creating a significant positive impact on India-UAE trade.
Indian exports to the UAE, excluding petroleum products, grew from USD 5.17 billion during June-August, 2021 to USD 5.92 billion in June-August, 2022, which denotes an increase of 14 pc, a government press release by the Ministry of Commerce read.
It is pertinent to note that India's global non-petroleum exports during the same period (June-August 2022) grew by 3 pc on an annual basis. This implies the growth rate of India's non-petroleum exports to the UAE is almost 5 times that of India's non-petroleum exports to the world.
The top 10 products, on an absolute change basis, excluding petroleum products are as follows: 
Excluding petroleum-related imports, Indian imports from the UAE during the same three-month period grew from USD 5.56 billion (June-August 2021) to USD 5.61 billion (June-August 2022) or an increase of 1 pc in percentage terms.
It may be noted that India's non-oil export growth of around 14 pc on a year-on-year basis comes in the context of significant macroeconomic headwinds such as the conflict in Ukraine, the COVID-19-related lockdowns in China, rising inflationary pressures, expected Policy tightening in advanced economies, global growth slowdown and consequently reduced demand, reduction in global merchandise trade (growth slowed down to 3.2 pc in Q1 2022 vis-a-vis 5.7 pc in Q4 2021) etc.
WTO's global trade growth forecast for the entire year 2022 was at 3 pc in April 2022. This forecast is expected to be revised downwards as the macroeconomic headwinds had worsened since April 2022.
Indian exports are likely to increase further in the coming months with increasing use of the CEPA by the exporters and with dedicated efforts from the Department of Commerce, in association with the Indian Mission in the UAE, through the organization of a series of trade promotion events in the UAE during the current Financial Year.
The analysis of the India-UAE CEPA was carried out from the period of June-August 2022, excluding statistics on the oil trade. The month of May has not been included for the purpose of the analysis as it is considered a transitory period.
Oil trade has not been considered as the import increase in oil/petroleum products is largely on account of the rise in global prices and to a certain extent on an increased offtake in volumes. Further, it is pertinent to mention that the bulk of the oil imports from the UAE are of Crude Petroleum, the demand for which is inelastic and the customs duty for which is very low, the press release added.
