TIL Desk Business/New Delhi/ The United Arab Emirates has attributed the delay in setting up the $75-billion UAE-India Infrastructure Investment Fund to New Delhi’s failure in putting in place the necessary governance structures. The UAE is keen that New Delhi should speed up the process and has also shown interest in an open-sky policy in aviation, and an improved bilateral investment agreement.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UAE in August 2015 was a watershed in many ways, and not just because Modi was the first Indian PM in 34 years to have visited the UAE, which is one of India’s biggest trade and investment partners.
That visit raised India-UAE ties beyond trade to the level of strategic partnership. It also led the UAE to agree to set up a $75-billion UAE-India Infrastructure Investment Fund to support investments over a 10-year period in India’s infrastructure sector.
The focus of the fund will be roads, railways, ports, airports, and industrial corridors and parks. But there is little forward movement in setting up the fund nearly 18 months after the PM and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s had signed the memorandum of understanding.
