A new trade corridor for the UAE: The UAE and India agreed to set up an India-UAE food corridor serving the UAE and neighboring regions by building food processing facilities and food parks in India, Indian news outlet ANI News reports India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal as saying at the India-UAE high-level task force meeting on investment in Mumbai. The UAE funneled an initial USD 2 bn commitment into the initiative.

The details: The investment will be geared towards building infrastructure — including food processing units and food parks — to support both Indian farmers and agribusinesses, and ramp up Indian agriculture exports to the UAE and the broader Middle East. The project is expected to be rolled out over two or two and a half years, with a small working group comprising Indian central and state governments, as well as UAE officials, formed to handle the project.

This has been in the works: “It has been under discussion for a very long time that UAE would like to invest in setting up food processing facilities in India to enable the availability of high-quality products suitable to the UAE taste in India using Indian farmers' products and to be sold in the UAE,” Goyal said.

The UAE and India also discussed ramping up bilateral cooperation in data centers and artificial intelligence, and co-investments in renewable energy and transmission infrastructure in India during the meeting.

The India-UAE joint committee is set to meet next week to address rising business concerns, CNBC TV18 reports, citing comments made by Goyal.

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