India, UAE trade tops $100 bn as CEPA review flags gold-quota shift

India and the UAE reviewed their Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in New Delhi on Thursday, 27 November, after bilateral trade crossed $100.06 billion in FY25, the highest since the pact came into effect in May 2022 and a 19.6% rise from the previous year.

The agreement was India’s first major trade deal in a decade and cut or eliminated tariffs on roughly 80% of product lines, while creating fast-track channels for services and digital trade. Since then, the UAE has climbed to become India’s third-largest trading partner, with gold, energy, machinery, electronics and gems forming the backbone of the corridor.

Against this backdrop, officials discussed India’s decision to shift gold tariff-rate quota allocations to a competitive bidding process, a change the UAE has been watching closely because it supplies more than 40% of India’s gold imports.

The quota was one of the most commercially sensitive elements of CEPA. Dubai-based refiners have argued for clearer rules, while New Delhi has been looking to curb arbitrage and improve transparency after a surge in imports last year.

The third CEPA Joint Committee meeting, co-chaired by India’s commerce ministry and the UAE’s international trade office, took stock of market-access issues, data-sharing obligations, services trade, anti-dumping cases and the functioning of Rules of Origin.

Both sides reviewed recent ministerial engagements in Mumbai and Dubai and reaffirmed plans to accelerate non-oil, non-precious-metal trade toward a $100 billion target by 2030.

Many of these are tied to utilization rates under the pact, which Indian officials say have been rising but remain uneven across sectors. Exporters in food processing, chemicals and engineering goods have benefited the most, while areas such as textiles and leather have reported slower uptake because of documentation and certification delays.

Officials also discussed regulatory coordination in pharmaceuticals, the resolution of delays linked to Certificates of Origin, BIS licensing, and the early signing of a pending food-safety MoU between APEDA and the UAE’s Ministry of Climate Change and Environment.

The meeting ended with an agreement to strengthen trade facilitation, expand data-exchange mechanisms and reconvene the CEPA Services Subcommittee.

The UAE delegation later met commerce secretary Rajesh Agrawal to review CEPA utilization levels by exporters on both sides.

The visit, New Delhi said, reflects the continued strategic weight of the partnership two years after the pact took effect.