India-UAE growth corridor: $25 billion in 10 yrs, room for more investments

The India-UAE growth corridor provides tremendous opportunities between the two countries for collaborating on trade, investments and talent, said industry executives and experts from UAE, while flagging the lack of a timebound legal framework for resolving disputes in India and inadequate infrastructure for supporting the ecosystem as key impediments to attracting more foreign direct investments (FDI).

The panel discussion on "The India-UAE Growth Corridor: Investing in the Next Decade" was moderated by ET's Deepshikha Sikarwar.

"This corridor is an alleviation of what we had a century or several centuries ago," said Abdulla Ziad Galadari, senior partner at Galadari Advocates. "India, with its digital economy and demographics, partnering up with UAE, with its capital, experience in logistics and global connectivity, creates a unique offering and experience," he said, adding whatever has been witnessed so far is just the beginning and that there is much more to follow.

While India received investments exceeding $25 billion from the UAE in the past decade, experts said the country has the appetite for more but stressed on the need to further improve its ease of doing business and strengthen infrastructure for attracting more private investments from UAE to commensurate with the growth in trade between the two countries.

Also Read | ET WLF 2026: India, US, UK must work together to find a way out of West Asia crisis

"If you look at ease of business, or ease of exit, or flexibility on the liquidity, or the legal reforms and infrastructure, India's performance is not as solid as the US, and hence, multi billions are going out from the UAE or the region to mostly the US," said Ekta Tolani, chief investment officer, KBW Ventures.

She said there is enough trust between the two nations, but the bilateral investment treaty (BIT) really needs to resolve the issues around family-to-family dialogue and come up with a legal framework to bring about a change in the private investment perspective. "We should not be happy about the $25 billion into India in the last 10-12 years," said Nandi Vardhan Mehta, chief financial officer at KAAF Investments, suggesting the need to enhance capital movement between the private families in the two countries. "We have more money over there and more appetite here in India."

Mehta said the real growth in job creation and capacity will happen through private sector investment for which India needs to build co-investing vehicles such as the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund or a credible sovereign institution as an anchor to let families around the world co-invest.

Experts highlighted that there is greater exchange of talent and technology between the two countries, thanks to the corridor. Nader Albastaki, managing director at Dubai Future District Fund said while enhancing trade was the whole purpose of the bilateral movement, of late, there is also movement of talent from India to the UAE. "We've seen over 4,000 Indian businesses setting up shops and doing business in the UAE," said Albastaki. "We're seeing fund managers raising capital to create and double down on this bridge between India and the UAE, and we're seeing innovation," he said.

Identifying energy as the key driver of attracting private investment from the UAE, experts said India's rising urban population, the AI revolution in the country, and its commitment towards green energy makes it a super attractive destination for investments. "India's estimated one billion urban population, its rapid foray into AI revolution and massive transformation in the energy mix makes it super, super, attractive," said Youssef Salem, chief financial officer at ADNOC Drilling, adding that India's deepest talent pool will drive growth in both India and Abu Dhabi.