Transcript
Manjeet Kripalani (MK): Hello, welcome to the 27th episode of Unfolding Geopolitics. We have with us today a very special guest, Ambassador Anil Wadhwa, who is a Distinguished Adjunct Fellow at Gateway House and former ambassador to Oman. He has been instrumental in several of India’s key trade agreements, starting with the India-Australia Pre-Trade Agreement, New Zealand, but most recently with the most exciting new agreement in the Gulf, which is the India Free Trade Agreement, the CEPA, with Oman.
We have a traditional relationship with Oman, traditional sailing and trading relationship with Oman. We have an Indian diaspora there that’s very well received in Oman. After all these years, how is the actual free trade agreement going?
Anil Wadhwa (AW): Let me start with this bilateral relationship when you mentioned about, you know, how this agreement can be related to what we were doing a long time ago, because Indian merchants and Omani sailors are actually bound together by the Indian Ocean.
And, you know, in the olden days, spices, textiles and grains flowed westward from the subcontinent, while dates, horses, frankincense and maritime expertise moved eastwards. And these exchanges created a certain amount of trust that survived the colonial disruption and the geopolitical upheavals. So, in this modern era, that civilisational connectivity has translated into steady political relations, there’s a robust energy to it.
And of course, Oman is an important source of petrochemicals for India. And there’s a sizable Indian diaspora today in Oman. So, when we look at this comprehensive economic partnership with Oman, which was signed in December 2025, I don’t think we can present this as another free trade agreement.
Because of course, India is expanding its wave of economic partnership. But I think we should read it more as, with this deeper significance, because in many ways, it’s a statement about how India sees the world economy today, how to engage with trusted partners, and how it is rediscovering an older trading instinct rooted in openness in maritime connectivity, and long-term commercial relationships. So, I think there’s more to this agreement than what we can see on the surface.
MK: Can you elaborate more about the salient features of this agreement, to another route. This is the second agreement we have had with a Gulf country. The first was with the UAE in 2023, if I’m not mistaken.
So, can you tell us a little bit about how this is different from the CEPA with the UAE?
AW: So, the UAE agreement was conceived as a very high impact, large scale commercial accelerator, leveraging the UAE’s role as a global trade and re-export hub. And that goes deeper into digital trade, fintech, logistics, ecosystems, and also regulatory convergence. And it delivered rapid growth in bilateral trade volumes.
The Oman CEPA, by contrast, is more focused on labour and service mobility on standards alignment and patient capital, I would say. And reflects the fact that India wants to use Oman to export its engineering skills and also contribute to Oman’s industrial infrastructure projects. So, it is less about becoming a global gateway, and more about anchoring a stable strategic economic partnership in a very geopolitical sensitive region.
But together, these agreements point to something larger. And they suggest where India is moving away from a phase of excessive caution in trade to a more confident and selective liberalisation.
MK: Oman’s rather strategic position is flanked by two very interesting countries, one of which is Iran. When you mentioned that it’s important for securing India’s position, can you tell us a little bit about the geopolitics and how we might play off it to our benefit? So geopolitically, Oman is, like you said, a very sensitive position. It has excellent relationship with all the Gulf countries.
AW: It’s known for its mediatory and balanced diplomacy, a sage kind of diplomacy, sagacious diplomacy. And it has good relationship with Iran; it has good relationship with Saudi Arabia. And also, it was the only country which kept its linkages open with Qatar when there was a crisis in the Gulf, if you remember a few years ago, when Qatar was boycotted by countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, and others who were opposed to what they saw as an overreach, a diplomatic overreach in other parts of the world, which actually they felt was not in keeping with the traditions of GCC.
And that led to a certain number of certain years of rift between them and Qatar. But Oman kept its avenues open with Qatar in those days. So, it’s known for its sagacious diplomacy, level-headedness, and the fact that it’s had a very important position in the Gulf, praises it as a unique country.
It also has a free trade agreement with the U.S. So that’s a big, that’s important for us, given the fact we’re still negotiating a relationship, trade agreement with the U.S., which may not be the same kind of full free trade agreement. So that could be a gateway to the U.S.
MK: That’s very interesting. You were talking a little bit about what this means for India and the larger trading sphere, that these agreements have really put India in a different spot.
AW: Yes. So, I think what India is trying to do is not a return to indiscriminate openness, but a calibrated strategy that prioritises trusted partners and protects its vulnerable sectors and links market access to investment, and skills. So, in other words, what India is doing is trying to rediscover an older trading instinct, one that once made the subcontinent a central mode of Indian ocean commerce but updating it with a world of negotiated rules and strategic competition.
And I think the India-Oman CEPA reflects India’s belief that economic strength will increasingly rest on resilient partnerships rather than transactional exchanges. And that openness, when it is shaped by strategy rather than ideology, can be a source of stability rather than vulnerability. So it’s rooted in history, but designed for the future.
And that suggests that India is not retreating from globalisation. It is learning once again, how to trade with the world, but on its own terms. And it’s important because India has not been part of some important regional agreements like RCEP, for instance, like CPTTP, for instance.
And these agreements give India that leverage to be able to still be open in its economy and trade with trusted partners. That’s right. We’ve been so shy of these global trade regimes that the seas are an important way to sort of learn, to get back into the world of trading.
MK: India is a little bit of a late comer to the oil riches of the Gulf. Really only seen this over the last 30 or 40 years. Does that make sense? Because it’s a sort of a middle power in the Gulf region. Does that make it a better partner? Is it more at India’s level? In the sense?
AW: I would say that it’s an ideal partner because it’s not. Now, if you look at what has been signed, you know, it reveals a lot because it’s not just trade liberalisation that has been offered both ways.
In fact, India, of course, got 99.3% of value of its exports. Liberalised to zero. And Oman, very close by there, about 95% of its goods, which India imports from Oman by value, will come in duty free.
But I think the substance lies in the services trade because that’s long been a strength of the Indian economy. It occupies a central place in this agreement because there are commitments now which span IT professional and business services, healthcare, education, construction, logistics, research, development. There is also a fact that Oman is committed to movement of professionals.
So, Oman, for example, in this agreement has significantly expanded the quotas for intra corporate transfer ease. So, they’re allowed in they’ve allowed contractual service suppliers to stay up for up to two years now in Oman with renewability. And in practical terms, what does it mean? It means that Indian companies can have up to 50% of the workforce in Oman despite Omanisation from India.
And also means that it also means that they can win a contract in Oman but also deploy talent on the ground to execute them because converting this means that you convert your legal access into real economic opportunity and scale up your operations very quickly. Then the other defining feature of this agreement is the attention to standards and certification. For example, when you talk about halal meat, for instance, now that required a lot of repetitive testing and recertification, which is timely, which is a costly affair, time consuming process.
So, there are now concessions which have been granted that will affect our meat, poultry and processed food sectors. And similarly, there’s facilitation for organic products under the India’s National Programme for Organic Production. The pharmaceutical industry also if you if there are global recognitions that they have, for example, USFDA or the European Medicines Agency, or the British MHRA, then they don’t have to reapply in Oman for registration.
So that cuts down the processes, time, costs, everything. And investment cooperation is also another major pillar of this SEPA. Because the partnership now is at the core of what we want with Oman.
India wants to invest in Oman, not just the other way around, but also in Oman’s new age industries as we call them. And we have the expertise to invest in infrastructure and manufacturing, in financial and green energy sectors in Oman. So that will all be very good for going forward.
We already have about 6000 projects in Oman. Very few people know about that. There’s a large investment in the fertiliser sector, 969 million dollars.
And also, there is a big investment in steel in Sohan. But now this makes it easier for turnkey projects to be entered into by Indian companies.
MK: Who really has been the driving force behind this agreement? I know that the famous expatriate Kimjee family has been advising the Sultan. Maybe you can tell us who from both sides has really been the driving force for this agreement?
AW: Well, I think this agreement one can say is actually anchored between the excellent relationship that Prime Minister Modi has with Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, particularly after he visited India. But on the negotiating side, I think continuity has played a very big role because we have our own Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, who has overseen India’s recent trade re-engagement.
And then there is also Oman’s Commerce Minister KS Muhammad Al Yusuf, who’s shaped the steel, I think, to fit into national development priorities. And Pankaj Kimjee, who is the Chief Advisor to the Minister for Investments and Trade, has also played a very big role in suggesting, first, that India and Oman should also look at a similar agreement like UAE. So, the idea originated from him during one of his visits.
And then it was, it went into concrete shape very, very quickly. In fact, I would say at the beginning of last year itself, there was a lot of progress made in this agreement. But since then, we’ve got stuck on things like petrochemicals and marbles for a long period of time.
And that is now finally settled. They found fits for issues like that. But in the process, what has happened is that India has also got a lot by way of services, which I mentioned about, about mobility of labour and about, you know, transferees being in Oman for two years with renewable periods, which means that Indian companies have got that leverage now to bid for projects and also scale up very easily.
MK: This is wonderful. We look forward to India being more geo-economically engaged with the world and being part of the global trade regimes. Thank you very much, Ambassador Wadhwa.
Manjeet Kripalani is Executive Director, Gateway House.
Amb. Anil Wadhwa is the Distinguished Fellow, Gateway House and Former Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.
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