Abu Dhabi: New Indian Ambassador to the UAE Navdeep Singh Suri is expected to assume his office in Abu Dhabi on Monday.
Suri was scheduled to arrive in the UAE Sunday midnight, a senior diplomat told Gulf News on Sunday.
When the ambassador-designate arrives in the designated country, he automatically assumes his office. “There is no need of any other [immediate] formalities,” said Neeta Bhushan, Charge d’affairs at the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi.
He will submit his credentials to the UAE Government in due course.
India announced Suri as the new ambassador to the UAE on October 17. He is replacing T.P. Seetharam who retired from service in August.
Grandson of famous Indian writer Nanak Singh, Suri himself has earned fame in literary world. His English translations of his grandfather’s classic Punjabi novels have been published by Penguin as The Watchmaker and by Harper Collins as A Life Incomplete.
An Arabic and French speaker, he has a master’s degree in economics and has written on India’s Africa policy, on public diplomacy and on the IT outsourcing industry.
He was serving as the Indian High Commissioner to Australia before this assignment. A senior diplomat, generally in the rank of an ambassador, is called a high commissioner in member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations, a voluntary association of 52 independent and sovereign states, mostly former British colonies.
A 1983 batch Foreign Service officer, Suri has served in India’s diplomatic missions in Cairo, Damascus, Washington, Dar es Salaam and London and as India’s Consul General in Johannesburg.
He has also headed the West Africa and Public Diplomacy divisions at the Ministry of External Affairs. He was India’s Ambassador to Egypt before moving to Australia. For his innovative use of social media in public diplomacy, Suri has received wide recognition, including two prestigious awards.
Suri is taking up India’s top diplomat’s post here when the two nations have elevated their relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first state visit to the UAE in August 2015 and a reciprocal state visit to India by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, in February this year. A large number of agreements signed during the two visits have given an unprecedented boost to the relations in economic, security and counter-terrorism, IT and many crucial sectors.
On October 2, New Delhi said Shaikh Mohammad will be the chief guest at the Indian Republic Day on January 26, 2017.
The UAE opened its Consulate General at Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the southern Indian state of Kerala in October. The second edition of the two-day UAE-India Economic Forum (UIEF) was also held in October in Dubai to explore investment opportunities in India. The two countries set up the UAE-India Infrastructure Investment Fund with a target of $75 billion (Dh275 billion) during Modi’s visit.
UAE’s investments in India increased to nearly $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) over the past year. The UAE is the seventh largest investor in India with $4.03 billion total foreign direct investment inflows from the UAE to India from April 2000 to March 2016. India was the largest trading partner for the UAE for the year 2015 whereas the UAE was India’s third largest trading partner after China and the US. Total bilateral trade during 2015-16 was around $50 billion.
