UAE visit: PM Narendra Modi drops in on a consequential partner

PRime government minister Narendra Modi’s way station in Abu Dhabi on May 15, en route to the bharat–Nordic breast, may endure only a few hours, but comes at a moment of uncommon strategic consequence. Modi will meet UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ) amid exceptional turbulence in West Asia. Disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and heightened tensions involving Iran have unsettled energy markets, shipping and regional security. Against this backdrop, sustained coordination with Abu Dhabi has acquired fresh urgency.The timing is especially significant. Modi recently used a public address to urge Indians to moderate fuel consumption to ease the economic strain from rising oil prices and the West Asia conflict—an unusually direct appeal underscoring the seriousness of the moment. India imports nearly 87% of its crude oil and roughly half of its natural gas requirements. In moments of geopolitical disruption, energy security becomes an immediate economic imperative.That reality helps explain why the UAE occupies a special place in India’s external engagement. The UAE ranks among India’s leading suppliers of crude oil, LNG and LPG and is today one of our most dependable energy partners. As energy markets become more fragmented and transactional, reliable bilateral arrangements matter more than ever for major importers such as India.The relationship extends beyond simple buyer-seller dynamics. The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) participates in India’s strategic petroleum reserves, while an ONGC Videsh-led Indian consortium holds a 10% stake in Abu Dhabi’s Lower Zakum oil field. Together, these arrangements give the relationship unusual strategic depth, combining supply reliability with upstream participation and long-term energy cooperation.The UAE’s recent exit from OPEC adds an important dimension. Outside cartel production quotas, Abu Dhabi will have greater flexibility to produce at capacity, potentially increasing crude availability and negotiating space for buyers like India, especially once disruptions ease. The case for expanding Emirati crude storage in India’s strategic petroleum reserves is also strong. This would give the UAE secure storage beyond Hormuz while enhancing India’s energy resilience.The Abu Dhabi discussions are likely to focus on ensuring reliable energy flows, coordinating assessments of an increasingly volatile regional environment, and strengthening maritime and defence cooperation. Drone and missile attacks across the Gulf have demonstrated how quickly instability can threaten trade routes and energy corridors vital to both the UAE’s exports and India’s economic growth.Yet reducing India–UAE ties to crisis management or hydrocarbons would miss the larger story. The visit follows MBZ’s visit to India this January and NSA Ajit Doval’s consultations in Abu Dhabi last month, underscoring intense high-level coordination. Leadership-level engagement, revived when Modi visited the UAE in 2015 after a 34-year hiatus, reflects a deeper transformation in India–UAE ties: from a transactional energy relationship to one of India’s closest strategic partnerships in its extended neighbourhood.That transformation mirrors larger shifts in India’s external engagement. The end of the Cold War and India’s economic liberalisation made energy security central to national strategy. As the Gulf diversified economically and the UAE emerged as a global commercial and logistics hub, complementarities with India deepened. A relationship once defined largely by oil trade and expatriate labour has evolved into a multidimensional partnership spanning investment, connectivity, technology, defence and security.The economic numbers tell that story. Bilateral trade crossed US$100 billion in 2025, making the UAE India’s third-largest trading partner after China and the United States. The UAE was India’s fifth largest FDI source in 2024-25. It has pledged cumulative investments of US$75 billion in India’s infrastructure sector, while the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority—one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds—anchors India’s National Investment and Infrastructure Fund. Building on the UAE’s COP28 presidency in 2023, cooperation has widened to include clean energy partnerships, through Emirati investments in Indian renewables and green hydrogen. Modi can be expected to encourage greater Emirati FDI and sovereign fund participation in India’s growth story.Indian companies are deeply embedded in the UAE economy, while the 4.3 million-strong Indian community—its largest expatriate group and one of the biggest concentrations of Indians abroad—provides enduring ballast to ties. Their remittances rank among the world’s highest. Modi is equally likely to encourage greater investment into India by the Indian diaspora in the UAE, whose financial linkages form an important pillar of the relationship.What distinguishes the UAE from other Gulf partners is the unusual concentration of its simultaneous strategic roles. Saudi Arabia may matter more for oil markets, Qatar for natural gas, and Oman for maritime access, but the UAE combines all: energy reliability, logistics connectivity, financial capital, a vast Indian diaspora, security cooperation and sustained political trust in a single relationship.For India, the UAE increasingly functions as a trusted partner, energy security anchor, logistics hub, investment source, security interlocutor and bridge to a wider region. For Abu Dhabi, India represents a major market, trusted development partner and rising geopolitical actor with which deeper engagement carries long-term strategic value.The partnership also sits comfortably within India’s broader approach of strategic autonomy and multi-alignment. In a fractured international order, New Delhi benefits from cultivating dependable partnerships across regions and power centres rather than becoming overly dependent on any one country or bloc. Pragmatic and equally comfortable navigating geopolitical divides, the UAE has become a natural partner in that strategy.Amid continuing turbulence in West Asia, Modi’s stopover in the UAE is anything but routine. It reflects a larger reality: few relationships in India’s extended neighbourhood matter more today than India’s partnership with the UAE. Brief though it may be, the Abu Dhabi meeting may well prove one of the most consequential engagements of Modi’s larger itinerary.Ajai Malhotra, Distinguished Fellow, TERI. Former Indian Ambassador and former Independent Director, ONGC and ONGC Videsh. Views expressed are personal.