Indian firms are flocking to the United Arab Emirates

Stand in the middle of the teeming Meena Bazaar in Dubai and it is not hard to imagine you are 1,200 miles across the Arabian Sea in Mumbai. Lanes are filled with names like Biryaniwalla & Co, Mini Punjab Restaurant and Tanishq jewellery. Arabic works as a means of communication; so, too, do Hindi and Malayalam. The financial institution with perhaps the greatest prominence, looming over the Dubai Creek, is Bank of Baroda, which is controlled by the Indian state.

Rather than serving merely as an ethnic enclave, the Meena Bazaar is the visible tip of a vast, growing network of Indian businesses—one that includes many of the most important companies in the United Arab Emirates (uae). To live in Dubai is to play a part in Indian commerce. The local business chamber reports that some 11,000 Indian-owned companies were added to its records in 2022, bringing the total number to 83,000. Trade links between the two countries are getting ever tighter.