A good start

India-UAE trade deal must be followed up

The announcement of a trade deal between India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) cannot come as a complete surprise, as officials have been saying for some time that negotiations —although they were officially started only in September 2021 —have been proceeding quickly. Yet the fact is that this is a major step forward in that it is the first new trade agreement signed since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014. For most of this government’s tenure, it has been noticeably reluctant to move India’s trading relations forward. Most notably, it withdrew from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership