Dubai: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi may visit Dubai’s Expo 2020 event, said Piyush Goyal, India's Commerce Minister during a press conference on Saturday.
"I do hope the honorable Prime Minister will accept the invitation to visit Dubai during the six month period when Dubai Expo is being held and take forward the wonderful relations between the two countries," said Goyal.
Goyal, who has been in the UAE for the inauguration of the India Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, has been involved in a spate of high-level government as well as business and industry meetings to boost investment and trade between UAE and India.
At the inaugural ceremony of the India Pavilion at Expo on Friday, Modi sent a video message inviting the world to India.
Conveying his greetings to the leaders of the UAE, Modi expressed his congratulations to the UAE for organising the world’s biggest fair in a splendid way.
He said Expo will go a long way in further building the historic relations between the UAE and India. “This Expo is also a testimony to the resilience of mankind against a once-in-a-century pandemic,” Modi said.
Boosting investments
Dubai-based developer Emaar and several UAE-based logistics companies have shown interest in investing in India’s infrastructure sector, according to Goyal.
“I had a bilateral with Emaar and the enthusiasm to invest in India is phenomenal,” said Goyal, during a press conference late on Saturday. “I had meetings with logistics companies and I would think we may not be able to match up with the speed at which they want to invest in India.”
India is now UAE’s second-largest trading partner, accounting for nine per cent of UAE’s total foreign trade and 13 per cent of non-oil exports. During the first half of 2021, bilateral trade reached $21 billion – a growth rate of more than 70 per cent compared to the first six months of last year.
