The Ministry of External Affairs has announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting West Asian countries the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain from August 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 be conferred the Zayed Medal, UAE's highest civilian award.

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 President grants him the Zayed Medal.”

Address to Indian Community in Bahrain by

Hon'ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi

during the forthcoming visit.

For participation register at https://t.co/M1lFyQLVAJ — India in Bahrain (@IndiaInBahrain) August 17, 2019 ×

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 a permanent focus of his foreign visits. There are 350,000 Indian nationals living in the West Asian country.

Bahrain launched ‘Little India in Bahrain’ project in November 2015 to acknowledge and mark the contribution of the Indian community to the history and progress of Bahrain.

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 President grants him the Zayed Medal. — محمد بن زايد (@MohamedBinZayed) April 4, 2019 ×

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 August 24 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.

The UAE envoy to India Dr Ahmad Al Banna while taking note of the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir and removal of Article 370 called it internal matter of India said "We expect that the changes would improve social justice and security and confidence of the people in the local governance and will encourage further stability and peace".

Recent years have seen India and UAE coming closers and an increase in a number of high-level visits between the 2 countries. Indian PM Modi first visited the country in August of 2015 which was followed by the visit of Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in 2016. The following year the Crown Prince was the chief guest at India's republic day parade and again in 2018 PM 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 in Bahrain and India’s total capital investment into Bahrain between January 2003 & March 2018 has been estimated at approximately US$ 1.69 billion.