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Commerce and industry Minister Piyush Goyal has stated that the free trade agreement between India and the UAE has opened huge opportunities and noted that businesses of both countries should look at taking the bilateral trade to $250 billion by 2030. He added that the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) was signed by India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in February and is expected to come into force from May 1.

He said ‘We should reset our goals and look for much much broader canvas in which this partnership should work and possibly look at going up to $250 billion between UAE and India by 2030’. Under the pact, domestic exporters of as many as 6,090 goods from sectors like textiles, agriculture, dry fruits, gem and jewellery would get duty-free access to the UAE market.

He also said that India is looking at increasing exports in goods and services to $2 trillion and the UAE would play a key role in achieving that target. He said that the UAE is a door for tapping other markets from Europe and Africa. Talking about India’s goods exports, he said it would cross $410 billion by end of this fiscal. Services exports too are doing great and these may reach $250 billion by end of the current fiscal.