Abu Dhabi: India has once again been confirmed as the world’s fastest-growing major economy. Last month, the IMF projected growth of around 6.4 percent, more than double the global average and sustained despite serious geopolitical turbulence.
It is the latest proof of an ambition Prime Minister Narendra Modi has distilled into a national mantra: every time India achieves one goal, it sets its sights on an even bigger one. Grow more. Achieve more.
That spirit of turning every milestone into the starting line for the next is one the UAE knows well. It is also why we see India as a natural long-term partner for mutually reinforcing growth.
The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between our countries…the first between the UAE and any country… has given our partnership powerful momentum. Since CEPA was signed, bilateral trade has accelerated to more than $100 billion, demonstrating what can be achieved when two ambitious economies remove barriers, align priorities and create the conditions for investment to flow.
But the significance of the relationship extends well beyond trade figures.
India is increasingly shaping the global agenda across manufacturing, technology and the digital infrastructure of the AI age. Through Make in India, India is transforming its own economy, and its progress is changing the direction of the global economy. This is the moment to strengthen our strategic partnership: investing across the value chain, reinforcing resilience, and supporting the industrial capabilities that will underpin India's next phase of growth.
India is already the world’s third-largest energy consumer and is on course to add close to one million barrels a day of refining capacity by 2030, among the largest expansions anywhere. Within 15 years, its urban population will approach 700 million, air travel is expected to grow by roughly 150 percent and data-centre capacity is on track to expand tenfold. At the same time, Make in India is accelerating the development of advanced manufacturing, infrastructure and domestic industrial capability.
Together, these forces are creating demand not only for energy, but for the materials, technologies, logistics networks and investment partnerships that will support India’s next stage of growth.
For an economy growing at this pace, resource security depends on whether the entire system, from production to storage, trading, shipping and logistics, can continue to function under all conditions.
Recent disruptions have shown how quickly pressure at a single chokepoint can spread through supply chains, raise costs and weaken economic resilience. The response must be to build more diversified systems, stronger infrastructure and deeper partnerships across the full value chain.
That is what the UAE and India have spent decades building together. Indian companies are cornerstone investors in the UAE’s upstream concessions, while the UAE was the first country to place crude in India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve, storing energy on Indian soil in 2018, well before resilience became a global priority. Today, India is ADNOC’s largest LNG market and a valued customer across crude, LPG and refined products.
And the ties between our nations run deep. More than four million Indians have made the UAE their home, providing a vital contribution to our economy, enriching our society and representing a living connection between our two nations.
As we look to the next phase of our relationship, I see three areas where we can build together.
First, we can strengthen resilient energy and commodity supply chains.
Backed by a $150 billion investment program, ADNOC is increasing production capacity to five million barrels per day by 2027. New gas developments in the UAE will unlock supplies equivalent to around one-third of India's current gas consumption, while XRG is expanding its international gas portfolio across key growth markets. ADNOC's integrated LNG marketing and trading platform will bring this growing portfolio together, targeting 47 million tonnes per annum of marketable LNG capacity by 2035. The objective is not simply to supply energy. It is to build greater resilience, flexibility and optionality into the systems that underpin India's continued growth.
Second, we can deepen industrial partnerships that support Make in India.
India's manufacturing ambitions will require secure access to petrochemicals, fertilizers, advanced materials and industrial technologies. Through TA'ZIZ, we have signed agreements with India's Sanmar Group to supply more than 350,000 tonnes of PVC feedstocks annually—the first exports of these chemicals from the UAE. Through Fertiglobe, we continue to support India's fertilizer production and food security. Together, there is significant opportunity to localize manufacturing, strengthen industrial supply chains, attract investment and create new value in both economies.
Third, we can collaborate on building the energy systems to power India's digital future.
As India develops one of the world's largest digital economies, AI will transform not only energy demand but energy systems themselves.
Data centres are only one part of the story. AI, industrial electrification, cooling, advanced manufacturing and mobility will all require substantially more reliable power. This creates opportunities for collaboration across data centers, electricity infrastructure, natural gas, renewables, smart grids and advanced industrial technologies.
The UAE brings more than energy resources. We connect markets, capital, technology, infrastructure and logistics. As one of the world's leading trade and investment hubs, we can help Indian companies expand across the Middle East, Africa and beyond, while continuing to invest alongside Indian partners in the industries that will define future growth.
Our shared opportunity is clear: deepen investment across the value chain, build more resilient supply chains, accelerate industrial partnerships and create the integrated energy and digital systems that will underpin decades of sustainable growth.
India's rise is one of the defining economic stories of our time. The UAE is ready to build alongside it, not simply as a supplier, but as a long-term partner in growth, resilience and innovation. That is the partnership the next era demands.
