UAE Crown Prince to be India's Republic Day chief guest

The United Arab Emirates is located in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula, bordering Oman to the east and Saudi Arabia to the south.

Established in 1971, it is a federation of seven states, Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain.

UAE has a population of 9.2 million, of which 1.4 million are Emirati citizens and 7.8 million are expatriates.

UAE is home to almost 2.6 million Indians.

Professionally qualified Indians constitute 15-20% of the community, followed by 20% white-collar non-professionals and the remainder 65% comprises blue-collar workers.

The Indian community in the UAE makes annual remittances of over $15 billion.

India's major export items to UAE include petroleum products, precious metals, stones, gems and jewellery, minerals, cereals, sugar, fruits & vegetables, tea, meat, and seafood, garments, apparel, synthetic fibre, cotton, yarn, engineering & machinery products and chemicals.

India primarily imports petroleum, petroleum products and wood products from the UAE.

UAE is one of the largest exporters of crude oil to India.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit in September 2015, bilateral ties between India and UAE began shifting toward security co-operation as well.

Modi had announced during his visit that he sought to elevate Indo-UAE ties to that of a comprehensive economic partnership.

In this regard, several agreements on co-operation in the fields of security, nuclear energy and space were to be signed.

UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan will be the Chief Guest at this year's Republic Day parade; for the first time, a marching band from the UAE's defence forces will join the parade on Republic Day.

India and the UAE will also hold the first bilateral strategic dialogue.

The UAE expressed interest in investing in India's infrastructure sector.

The first bilateral Indo-UAE strategic security dialogue could see both sides discuss ways to improve co-ordination in counter-terrorism.

The two sides are also likely to discuss means of effectively combating money laundering, drug trafficking and trans-national crimes.

India and UAE have also agreed to set up a dialogue between their National Security Advisers and their National Security Councils.