UAE to invest $2 billion to develop integrated food parks across India
New Delhi: The first summit of the four-nation grouping 'I2U2' on Thursday announced an investment of $2 billion to develop a series of integrated food parks across India and a plan to set up a 300-megawatt hybrid renewable energy project in Gujarat, signalling its near long-term strategic partnership to address major challenges in specific areas.
In the virtual summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan largely focused on joint investments and new initiatives in six specific areas of water, energy, transportation, space, health and food security.
A joint statement by the four leaders said the UAE will invest $2 billion to develop a series of integrated food parks across India, incorporating state-of-the-art climate-smart technologies to reduce food waste, conserve fresh water and employ renewable energy sources.
In his remarks, Biden said the UAE's investment to develop integrated agricultural parks across India with the support of the American and Israeli private sector experts has the.potential to sustainably increase India's food yields by "threefold in just five years".
The formation of the grouping, known as 'I2U2' with "I" standing for India and Israel and "U" for the US and UAE, is largely seen as a strategic attempt by the US to check China's increasing influence in Asia and the Middle East.
In opening his remarks, Modi said the 'I2U2' has established a "positive" agenda in its first summit itself and that it would make an important contribution in areas of energy security, food security and economic growth. "It is clear that the vision and agenda of "I2U2" is progressive and practical. By mobilising the mutual strengths of our countries —capital, expertise and markets — we can accelerate our agenda, and contribute significantly to the global economy," he said.
"Our cooperative framework is also a good model for practical cooperation in the face of increasing global uncertainties," he said.
Asserting that the group has a clear agenda, Lapid said "this is not a philanthropic group. We want to change the world for the better, but we are also creating relative advantages for our countries, for our businesses, for our science sector."
The UAE President said "our whole team will be a model for those who desire peace and prosperity and will provide evidence for the great opportunity ...squandered by blind extremism at the expense of people eager to live a good life," comments seen as directed at Iran. The joint statement mentioned that the 'I2U2' group will advance a hybrid renewable energy project in Gujarat consisting of 300 megawatts of wind and solar capacity, to be complemented by a battery energy storage system. The US Trade and Development Agency funded a feasibility study for the $330 million project and UAE-based companies are exploring opportunities to serve as critical knowledge and investment partners.
