Ducab India, part of the Ducab Group, one of the biggest end-to-end energy solutions providers and manufacturing firms in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has signed its first bilateral partnership with Emirates NBD India. Through the partnership, the Ducab Group is looking at a continued expansion of its wires, cables, and metal solutions in India. The first transaction under the new bilateral partnership has already been completed.
Through the partnership, Emirates NBD will be supporting the working capital and capex expansion plans of Ducab in India. It will assist Ducab in financing local projects through its strong project financing experience in multiple dimensions. It will also assist in risk management by leveraging the LCS (local currency settlement) mechanism, which will be promoted through bilateral trade and investment between Ducab, India, and the UAE.
His Excellency Abdulnasser Jamal Alshaali, UAE Ambassador to the Republic of India, said, "The UAE and India have long shared robust bilateral trade ties, which have received a significant added boost in recent years with the UAE's push to expand its global network and diversify its economy, where ‘Expanding the UAE's International Economic Partnerships' was strongly promoted as one of the five top government priorities for 2023."
Mohammad Almutawa, Group CEO, Ducab, noted, "This new bilateral partnership that we have signed with Emirates NBD India is an extension of our existing robust partnership with Emirates NBD Group, which has enabled both entities to grow together across various markets. It also builds on our recent tremendous progress in the Indian market, underpinned by our newly opened office in Bengaluru, which was planned to further strengthen our operations and presence in the region and establish Ducab as a leading global provider of high-quality integrated energy solutions."
Sharad Agarwal, CEO at Emirates NBD India, said, "This new partnership with the Ducab Group builds on the momentum of the trade agreement that the UAE and India signed last year, wherein two governments have agreed to increase bilateral trade to USD 100 billion per annum, with a focus on the transportation, logistics, and infrastructure sectors in India, and bring it in line with international best practices. We have great confidence in Ducab's integrated solutions in that regard, and in the products it supplies to various projects, which stand out for meeting the highest quality standards."
The agreement is in line with the UAE's strategy to continuously diversify the national economy and increase non-oil trade with international commercial partners. India consistently ranks among the UAE's largest global trade partners, with India-UAE bilateral trade currently valued at around USD73 billion. The agreement also follows landmark agreements signed between the two countries, most notably the UAE-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), designed to enable businesses to invest and expand their operations, drive cross-border trade, and build new partnerships, as well as the historic Memorandum of Understanding signed between the UAE and India regarding the Local Currency Settlement (LCS) system, which allows for the use of the Indian Rupee and UAE Dirham in bilateral trade—India's first arrangement of this kind.
