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Aiming to push Indo-Gulf ties beyond oil and expatriates

Minister of State for External Affairs Saleem Shervani will meet Indian ambassadors to eight Gulf states in Abu Dhabi on Friday for a comprehensive review of India's ties with the region.

"Basically, the Gulf is enormously important to India, given the fact that it meets the bulk of our energy needs and given the large population of Indians in the Gulf, " one of the ambassadors said.

"The Gulf is an important part of India's strategic thinking," another official said.

The meeting will be the first of its kind for this region, but similar exercises are regularly conducted by the external affairs ministry for different parts of the world.

They are meant to enable the external affairs minister to interact with a group of ambassadors who have to deal with similar issues in a fairly homogenous area.

Such meetings enable the minister to acquire firsthand knowledge about the situation in a region and help the ministry to map out its strategies accordingly.

"The meeting will be a wide canvas survey of India's relations with the Gulf states, with special focus on economic interaction," one of the diplomats said.

Apart from the fact that India sources most of its oil imports from this region, the Gulf states are also home to around three million Indians, who live and work in these countries.

According to one estimate, non-resident Indians in the Gulf account for about four to five billion dollars of remittances each year, which have helped buoy up the country's balance of payments situation. Equally important is the fact that the Gulf is one of the biggest markets for Indian exports.

Official statistics show that Indian exports to the six Gulf Cooperation Council states totalled $2.430 billion in 1996-97 against India's total exports of around 33 billion dollars. India's exports to the region in 1996-97 were 13.6 per cent higher than the $2.147 billion achieved in the previous year.

India's total trade with the GCC states stood at $10.512 billion in 1996-97, up from $8.437 billion in 1995-96. Imports from the council states was $8.082 billion, compared to $6.289 billion in the previous year.

"India's oil imports create an imbalance in trade, but this is largely offset by invisibles," the official said.

The GCC comprises Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and Qatar.

The meeting will be attended by ambassadors Mohammed Hamid Ansari (Saudi Arabia), M P M Menon (UAE), Arif Qamarain (Iraq), Inderjit Singh Rathore (Oman), BMC Nayar (Kuwait), R L Narayanan (Qatar), Rajnikanta Barman (Bahrain), and K R Sinha (Yemen).

Lalit Mansingh, secretary (west) in the external affairs ministry, and R Dayakar, joint secretary (Gulf), are also due to attend the meeting.

Apart from the formal meeting on Friday, the ambassadors will continue to have informal discussions with Shervani on September 20 and 21, when he is due to hold bilateral meetings with UAE leaders.

"Shervani is expected to focus on ways of improving economic relations with the Gulf states and boosting India's exports to this region," an official said.

The meeting is taking place at a time when India's economic relationship with the Gulf states is developing well. "Things are slowly beginning to fall in place," he said.

There is greater awareness in the Gulf states today about India's economic achievements and capabilities, thanks to its regular participation in trade fairs in the region and to more frequent visits by business delegations.

Many of the Indian officials posted in the region feel that India needs to take specific steps to expand and diversify trade with the Gulf states.

"We should participate in more specialised trade fairs and display our engineering capabilities...We should have more exclusive exhibitions of Indian goods and services," one of them said.

More and more Indian companies are winning major contracts in the Gulf states. Several important joint venture projects are also being implemented currently.

For instance, Oman has decided to participate in two oil refineries in India and Kuwait in one. Kuwait is looking at two other major projects in India, including a second refinery.

India and Oman are also setting up a joint venture fertiliser project in the sultanate.

The Gulf states also account for a significant percentage of the total number of tourist arrivals in India and officials believe some of them might be interested in investing in tourist infrastructure in the country.

In the case of Iraq, India has been trying to get some contracts under the United Nations oil-for-food deal which allowed Baghdad to sell oil worth two billion dollars in six months to buy food, medicines and other humanitarian supplies.

For some seven years now, Iraq has been under crippling sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council after Baghdad's August 1990, invasion and seven-month occupation of Kuwait.

Like other countries, India has also been looking at the possibility of contracts in Iraq's oil and other sectors when these sanctions are lifted.

On the political front, India has no major problems with the Gulf states but it recognises the need for better relations and greater understanding with them.

"It is an area of vital engagement for us, and we are trying to improve relations," another official said.

"We need more exchanges of high-level visits. We should, for instance, have more exchanges of parliamentarians," one ambassador said, adding, "Most important, we should find ways of constant people-to-people interaction."

Consular matters and labour-related issues will also be discussed at the meeting.

Indian workers in the Gulf states often face serious difficulties because of cheating by recruitment agents and other factors. On landing here, many of them find themselves without proper jobs or salaries.

Thousands of Indians also end up as illegal expatriates in these countries for a variety of reasons.

Last year, some 60,000 Indians returned home from the UAE under an amnesty scheme for those staying without proper papers in this country.

In the last few weeks, some 8,000 Indians are estimated to have been sent back from Saudi Arabia under a similar amnesty, which will end in mid-October.

Bahrain has also announced a three-month amnesty for those staying illegally in the country and thousands of Indians are expected to take advantage of the offer.