Problems inevitably arise, but they have largely been addressed in a constructive spirit. When I travelled to the region as minister, the well-being of Indian expatriates was a prominent concern in my meetings: as a Lok Sabha MP from the state which dispatches the most migrant workers, I could do no less. Many heart-rending stories have been told about the working conditions of some of the Indian blue-collar workers on construction sites and their residential conditions in labour camps. Though they are undoubtedly there of their own free will, and suffer these difficulties in order to send savings back home, as an Indian politician I was concerned to do what I could to ease their conditions of life and work without seeming to intrude on the sovereign prerogatives of the host countries. While I was in Oman in early 2010, for instance, I met with a number of Indian workers, heard about their problems and sought a meeting with the manpower minister to resolve them. I was gratified by the warm and receptive spirit in which the Omani minister discussed them with me and accepted my suggestions. Mechanisms to institutionalize the welfare of the Indian expatriate workforce in the Arab countries need to be created and strengthened. There was a clear appreciation in all the Arab countries I visited that these Indian workers are an asset to their receiving countries; in turn I suggested that if conditions governing their work and life are improved, it would be a win-win proposition for all concerned.
Trade is undoubtedly a vital aspect of the Indo-Arab relationship. For several centuries, India provided the necessities, comforts and luxuries needed by the people of the Gulf and occasionally re-exported by them to other markets. Well before the invention of the internal combustion engine and the sudden importance of oil and gas from Arabia, Indian foodstuffs, textiles and jewellery constituted the main exports to the Arab world, while India in turn imported huge quantities of dates and pearls.
Later, hydrocarbons entered the equation, boosting both need and quantity. As a result, India’s trade with the Arab countries is booming as never before. A look at our figures of trade with the Arab world is illuminating. For instance, the Gulf region has emerged as the most significant trading partner of India in dollar terms. During 2006–07 the total two-way trade was $47 billion; by the year 2010–11 it had reached more than $130 billion. Trade with the non-Gulf Arab countries totalled more than $15 billion. Total trade with Arab countries was about $90 billion in 2007–08 and is nearing $150 billion today. It is clear that commerce with the Arab world has assumed an importance for India that can simply not be jeopardized.
It is also clear that here, too, there is no room for complacency. Both in the foreign and in the trade ministries, India and its trading partners need to identify and focus our work on multipliers and leverages. Negotiations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to conclude an India — GCC free trade agreement have, for instance, become bogged down, with little sign of urgency on either side to resolve the impediments to an agreement. The successful conclusion of an FTA would complement our ongoing and rapidly expanding bilateral economic engagement with individual member countries of the GCC, but the talks have proceeded at best fitfully.
India has always shown its willingness to share with our Arab brethren our experience and expertise in institution and capacity building, governance, science and technology (including, especially, information technology), medical research and biotechnology, health care and higher education. This cooperation has also featured the training of Arab officials, diplomats, soldiers and scholars. While the more affluent Arab countries tend to pursue the training of their elites in the developed West, many developing countries in the Arab world are appreciative of the Indian connection.
There are, of course, some areas where what India offers is in no way inferior to competing products or services from the advanced West. While agreements on cooperation in information and communication technology exist with a number of Arab countries, India and Egypt have even concluded an agreement on the peaceful use of outer space. Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), was awarded a contract in July 2008 for the launch of Algeria’s satellites. Antrix has completed a remote sensing project involving setting up of an earth station in Algeria using Indian CARTOSAT imagery.
The fundamentals of India — Arab relations thus both pre-date and transcend the importance of oil and gas, though there is no doubt that Arab countries — as vital sources of hydrocarbons, whether from the Gulf or more recently from Egypt, Sudan and the Maghreb — have become essential to India’s energy security needs. Indian companies have secured concessions or have otherwise invested in the oil sector significantly in Sudan, Egypt and Libya. Less publicized, perhaps, is the enormous importance to India’s food security of countries such as Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria as providers of rock phosphate and phosphoric acid and potash, all of which translate into fertilizer for our farmers.
Besides the hydrocarbon and fertilizer sectors, Indian companies have executed or are in the process of completing a variety of projects, including those financed by concessional lines of credit. Examples include a thermal power plant in Sudan, a cement plant in Djibouti, an architecturally complex bridge in Jordan and a variety of projects in Libya. Egypt has emerged as a significant Indian investment destination with Indian investments estimated at over $500 million. A series of India — Arab investment projects conclaves, starting in 2008, have paved the way for stronger trade and investment relations between the two regions. The conclaves provide an enabling institutionalized platform for businesses and investors from India and the Arab countries to cooperate and build partnerships.
There is much more scope for Arab investment in India; the Arab world’s surplus resources have still largely been directed to the West. Indian diplomats have attempted to persuade Arab countries that they should contemplate massive investments in our infrastructure, energy and industrial sectors, but success has been modest (though the UAE’s Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Dubai Ports World have been active in India). India is also seeking Arab investments in its human resources through the upgrading of India’s institutions of primary education and higher learning. India’s invitation to Arab investors to participate in the new phase of development and prosperity on which we have embarked has not yet found the number of takers New Delhi had hoped for.
The Gulf region and the UAE in particular are key targets for investment promotion. The Gulf Cooperation Council countries are rich in financial resources and in technological capabilities and expertise that have emerged over the last forty years of extraordinary all-round development. The UAE as a country and the GCC as an economic grouping are already India’s number one trade partners. India’s trade with the UAE touched $67.1 billion in 2010–11 and with the GCC members as a whole it reached $130.9 billion. India now sees the UAE and the GCC as our premier investment partners as well, in the hope that we can, through our joint efforts, build up the projects and institutions that will transform the face of India. Given the long history of our fruitful interaction, Indian ministers, myself included, have sought to portray a potential investment partnership as one more step in the mutually beneficial relationship that has bonded our people over several millennia, which promises, in its implications, to be more extraordinarily transformational and fruitful than any interaction that has gone before.