India PM to visit UAE this week

New Delhi

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will head to the United Arab Emirates this weekend, New Delhi's foreign ministry said yesterday, in the first visit by an Indian premier in more than three decades.

Modi will visit from August 16 to 17 and plans to meet his UAE counterpart Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum as well as Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a foreign ministry statement said.

His visit comes more than 34 years after then prime minister Indira Gandhi visited the UAE in May 1981.

Modi is expected to kick off his two-day visit on Sunday in Abu Dhabi and will deliver an address to the large Indian diaspora at Dubai Cricket Stadium Grounds the following day.

UAE is home to an Indian expatriate community of more than 2.6 million, many of them labourers who have been behind the region's construction boom.

Earlier in May this year, the Indian PM announced that his country was open for investment as firms signed deals worth more than $22 billion on his visit to China.

Despite his hardline reputation, Modi moved to engage with Beijing, seeking to deliver on election promises for foreign investment.

China is India's biggest trading partner with two-way commerce totalling $71 billion (62 billion euros) in 2014. But India's trade deficit with China has soared from just $1 billion in 2001-02 to more than $38 billion last year, Indian figures show.

Modi then welcomed potential Chinese investment in sectors including housing, renewable energy, high-speed rail, metro, ports and airports, adding that India was eager to draw on China's expertise in mass manufacturing.