The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will be the first middle eastern country to witness the launch of the RuPay Card, India¡¯s original equivalent of Mastercard or Visa, during prime minister Narendra Modi¡¯s visit this weekend.
Navdeep Singh Suri, Indian Ambassador to the UAE, in an interview to Emirates News Agency, WAM, said: "A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish a technology interface between the payment platforms in India and UAE, would be exchanged between the National Payments Corporation of India and UAE's Mercury Payments Services. This will enable the RuPay card to be used at point-of-sale terminals across the UAE."
He added that UAE hosts India¡¯s largest community, receives the highest number of Indian tourists and has the largest trade with India.
"By becoming the first country in the region to introduce the RuPay card, we expect that each of these elements of tourism, trade and the Indian diaspora will benefit," Suri said.
India had already launched the RuPay card in only two foreign countries - Singapore and Bhutan.
The Indian Embassy in UAE has completed establishing the system to issue India's newly introduced 5-year multiple entry tourism and business visa for Emiratis.
"We are required under our regulations to obtain biometric data of the Emirati applicants on the first occasion and I am happy to say that we have now established these systems across the BLS Service Centres in UAE (the Indian Embassy's outsourced centres for passport and visa services)," Suri added.
During PM Modi¡¯s visit, a commemorative stamp on Mahatma Gandhi that would be released on the occasion of his 150th birth anniversary.?
Modi will also receive the Zayed Medal, the UAE's highest civilian award, during the visit.
"We have witnessed a rapid increase in high-level exchanges and the establishment of a relationship of genuine trust and confidence. The close personal bond between Prime Minister Modi and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, is not only an embodiment of this relationship but also its key driver," Suri told Gulf News.
Talking about the economic aspect, bilateral trade touched $60 billion last year with a fairly balanced profile of about $30 billion of exports and $30 billion of imports, he was quoted as saying by the IANS.
"On the investment side, we have already seen sizable inflows from India to UAE in free zones like Jebel Ali, Hamriyah Free Zone Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah Economic Zone and also in sectors ranging from manufacturing and real estate to trade and services. We have now started to observe a strong flow of investments from the UAE to India. These are particularly significant in areas such as energy, infrastructure, housing, highways, airports, logistics, food processing and the defence sector," the diplomat said.