The UAE will be the first country in the Middle East to witness the launch of RuPay card, “an Indian indigenous equivalent of Mastercard or Visa,” during the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi today evening, a top Indian diplomat told the Emirates News Agency, WAM.

Navdeep Singh Suri, the Indian Ambassador to the UAE, informed that an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a technology interface between the payment platforms in India and UAE would be exchanged between the National Payments Corporation of India and UAE’s Mercury Payments Services. “This will enable the RuPay card to be used at point-of-sale terminals across the UAE.”

He added, “The UAE is the largest and most vibrant business hub in the region. It hosts the largest Indian community, receives the largest number of Indian tourists and has the largest trade with India. By becoming the first country in the region to introduce the RuPay card, we expect that each of these elements of tourism, trade and the Indian diaspora will benefit,” he explained.

India had already launched RuPay card in only two foreign countries – Singapore and Bhutan.

The Indian Embassy has already put the system in place across BLS Service Centres in UAE for them to issue India’s newly introduced 5-year multiple entry tourism and business visa for Emiratis.

The envoy added that a commemorative stamp of Mahatma Gandhi that would be released on the occasion of his 150th birth anniversary during the Prime Minister’s visit and that the Indian Prime Minister will receive the Zayed Medal, the UAE’s highest civilian award, during the visit.

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The India-UAE Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, during the past four years, has rapidly expanded into sectors like trade, investment, energy, defence and security, among others. According to data, the bilateral trade between the two countries touched almost $60bn last year with about $30bn in  exports and $30bn of imports, the ambassador added.

“On the investment side, we have already seen sizable inflows from India to UAE in free zones like Jebel Ali, Hamriyah Free Zone Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah Economic Zone and also in sectors ranging from manufacturing and real estate to trade and services. We have now started to observe a strong flow of investments from the UAE to India. These are particularly significant in areas such as energy, infrastructure, housing, highways, airports, logistics, food processing and the defence sector,” the diplomat added.