When flying over the Middle East and South Asia at 35,000 feet, it would seem like a complete mismatch. Sprawling India with 1.2 billion people and the UAE with a population of under 10 million, about a quarter of them Indian expatriates.

But something clearly clicked during the first visit of an Indian Prime Minister in 34 years. Narendra Modi broke the three-decade streak of no shows, but it certainly begs the question — Why didn’t his predecessors make the four-hour journey from Delhi?

As I pointed out during my on-air reporting of the two-day event, Modi had the royal treatment in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and he had a rock-star welcome when more than 50,000 Indian expats packed a cricket stadium to see the PM in person.

If a picture speaks a thousand words, than the video coverage I perused of the events in both cities spoke a million. After only 15 months in office, Modi has forged what appears to be a solid bond with the UAE leadership.

The Indian Prime Minister is leveraging a trade relationship that has blossomed over the past decade. It was less than $200 million (Dh735 million) a year in the 1970s, but even recent history points to trade that is surging: from $7 billion a decade ago, we are looking at $60 billion this year. It is difficult to find a bilateral relationship where trade growth has expanded that rapidly in such a short span of time.

Dubai has positioned itself for nearly three decades as the trade hub of the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia region, and that rings true for India, which utilises Jebel Ali as its re-export facility to the world.

This 48-hour extravaganza, however, was designed to use those trade ties as a foundation for growth.

While China is struggling to maintain economic momentum and may deliver growth of 6.5 per cent this year, its slowest in a quarter century, India may expand by 7.5 per cent. More importantly for the UAE, India’s energy demand is rising rapidly, poised to take the Number Three slot from Japan.

In the second quarter, daily demand hit just over four million barrels and rose a healthy 300,000 barrels a day over the past year. Since India and China have similar sized populations, it is not a stretch to believe that India will eventually match China’s thirst for crude which is running at 10 million barrels a day.

Prime Minister Modi clearly had a different agenda — once again banging the drum for his ‘Make in India’ campaign, attempting to provide a viable alternative to China as a manufacturing base. India needs an estimated $1 trillion to build road and rail networks, power grids and the general infrastructure one finds here in the Emirates.

This could play to the UAE’s sweet spot, since its sits on more than $1 trillion of sovereign wealth in seven different funds. Infrastructure projects are usually safe investments by nature and pay steady dividends with little downside risks, if there is the right leader at the top.

Prime Minister Modi has a proven track record as a pro-business leader when he was Chief Minister of the western state of Gujarat. Over 13 years in office, he worked to slash the layers of the fabled Indian bureaucracy to help garner more than its fair share of foreign direct investment, although there are some who believe he should have done more to reduce poverty.

It was not all clear sailing for Modi during this visit. UAE business leaders grumbled that they still believe his country is not as user-friendly as its should be, but certainly a growing middle-class of 300 million consumers is a good incentive to go back if Modi can deliver on his promises.

UAE Inc. is no stranger to India; the big names are already there: Emaar, DP World, Jumeirah Hotels, Abu Dhabi National Energy Company and Etihad Airways all have made investments. In terms of airline connections, it may not be the frequency of the New York-Washington D.C. shuttles, but it is not far behind. After his two-day journey to the UAE, we are looking at a much different scale of partnership in the future. The UAE-India Infrastructure Investment Fund has been formed with a target of $75 billion. At the same time, the two parties wanted to set up a framework for regular gatherings.

In that spirit, Prime Minister Modi extended an invitation to his counterpart His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, which was immediately accepted. After this set of bilateral meetings, don’t expect three decades to pass before they meet face-to-face again.

— The writer is CNN’s Emerging Markets Editor.