UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed to visit India on January 19 to boost strategic ties

UAE

President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan will visit India on Monday, January 19, at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The visit marks another milestone in the growing strategic ties between the two nations.

This will be Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed’s third official visit since assuming office as UAE president and his fifth in the past decade. According to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the visit will allow both leaders to “chart new frontiers” for the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

For New Delhi, Abu Dhabi has quietly become a reliable interlocutor in the Gulf as global energy markets, security alignments and trade flows are being recalibrated. For the UAE, India represents a consumption market, a growing manufacturing hub and, increasingly, a geopolitical hedge in a multipolar world.

“India and the UAE share warm, close, and multi-faceted relations, underpinned by strong political, cultural, and economic ties. The two countries are among each other’s top trading and investment partners, bolstered by the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), the Local Currency Settlement (LCS) system, and the Bilateral Investment Treaty. India and the UAE also enjoy a robust energy partnership, including long-term energy supply arrangements,” the MEA said in a statement. 

Earlier this month, India’s army chief travelled to the UAE to discuss military engagement.

The visit coincides with the first day of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos (January 19-23), a forum now unfolding amid heightened global tensions and geopolitical unpredictability. This year’s summit brings together world leaders against a backdrop of sharp US policy moves, including military action and regime change in Venezuela and looming disputes over Iran and European trade.

From Commerce To Comprehensive Ties

The 2022 CEPA is where the momentum accelerated. Tariff cuts on thousands of products supported a surge in exports of Indian engineering goods, pharmaceuticals and electronics. For the UAE, CEPA opened lanes to invest in Indian infrastructure, technology and renewable energy.

The numbers tell the story of scale. From roughly $180 million in annual trade in the 1970s, the bilateral trade touched an all-time high of $100.06 billion in FY 2024–25, as per the website of India’s Embassy in the UAE. 

More recent initiatives — rupee-dirham settlement, integration of digital payment rails like UPI in the UAE, and more conversations around reducing dollar dependence show how both sides are willing to shift architecture, not just sentiment.

Defence cooperation, once limited, now spans joint exercises and maritime dialogues. The logic is straightforward- sea lanes in the Gulf and western Indian Ocean are too important to leave to chance or to single-actor dominance.

Today, the UAE is India’s third-largest trading partner and the second-largest export destination, with exports crossing $36.63 billion in FY 2024-25.

No bilateral is purely transactional when people are involved at scale. Indians constitute the largest expatriate group in the UAE, about 4.3 million people, or roughly 35% of the population. That demographic presence feeds commercial networks, remittances and soft power in ways that formal agreements cannot.

Geopolitically, both countries are reading the global shifts with similar instincts. India will take over the BRICS presidency in 2026; the UAE joined the grouping in its recent expansion phase. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, still at the conceptual stage, presents another test of coordination.