PM Modi to visit Bahrain and UAE from August 23 to 25

The Ministry of External Affairs has announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting West Asian countries the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain fromAugust 23 to 25.

The prime minister will be visiting the UAE on August 23 and will be meeting Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. He will also beconferred the Zayed Medal, UAE's highest civilian award.

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In April this year, UAE announced that it will be honouring PM Modi with its highest civilian award. In a tweet in April,the crown prince said that PM Modi has been conferred the award for boosting India UAE ties.

He tweeted, “We have historical and comprehensive strategic ties with India, reinforced by the pivotal role of my dear friend, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who gave these relations a big boost. In appreciation of his efforts, the UAE Presidentgrants him the Zayed Medal.”

PM Modi's second stop will be Bahrain from August 24 where he will be holding talks with Prime Minister of Bahrain Prince Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa and call on King of Bahrain Shaikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

Later he will address members of the Indian community, something that has become apermanent focus of his foreign visits. There are 350,000 Indian nationals living in the West Asian country.

Bahrain launched ‘LittleIndia in Bahrain’ project in November2015to acknowledge and mark the contribution of the Indian community to the history and progress of Bahrain.

The visit will be part of his visit to France where he has been invited as a special guest for the G7. The 45th G7 summit will take place from August24 to 26, 2019, in Biarritz, France.

India–United Arab Emirates relations

United Arab Emirates was one of the first OIC or Organisation of Islamic Cooperation countries to welcome the Indian government's decision to remove the special status for the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

TheUAEenvoy toIndiaDr Ahmad Al Banna while taking note of the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir and removal of Article 370 calledit internal matter ofIndiasaid "We expect that the changes would improve social justice and security and confidence of the people in the local governance and will encouragefurther stability and peace".

Recent years have seenIndiaandUAEcoming closers and an increase in a number of high-level visits between the 2 countries.IndianPM Modi first visited the country in August of2015which was followed by the visit of Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in2016.The following year the Crown Prince was the chief guest atIndia'srepublic day parade and again in2018PM Modi visited the country and was the chief guest at the sixth World Government Summit in Dubai.

With Bahrain, the focus is on increasing bilateral ties, especially economics and trade.There are 23 branches of prominent Indian banks/companies registered inBahrain and India’s total capital investment into Bahrain between January2003& March2018has been estimated at approximately US$ 1.69 billion.