New Delhi: India and the UAE on Wednesday decided to further strengthen their bilateral defence ties, including maritime security collaboration through real-time information sharing, joint manufacturing initiatives and enhancing military training cooperation.The two countries agreed to elevate their defence ties to match the growing momentum in areas such as trade, investment, and social relations during the 13th joint defence cooperation committee (JDCC) meeting co-chaired by defence secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh and UAE’s under-secretary of defence Lt General Ibrahim Nasser M. Al Alawi here.“India offered to provide customised training courses tailored to the UAE military’s needs. A MoU was also signed between the Indian Coast Guard and the UAE National Guard to establish a framework for enhanced cooperation in search and rescue operations, pollution response, anti-piracy efforts, and related maritime security domains,” an official said.This comes after India in April had offered the indigenous Akash air defence missile system, which can intercept hostile aircraft, helicopters, drones and subsonic cruise missiles at a range of 25-km, to the UAE at a meeting between defence minister Rajnath Singh and Dubai crown prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.On Wednesday, the two sides also held discussions on training cooperation, defence industrial partnerships, and Service-to-Service engagements. “They agreed to pursue joint manufacturing initiatives, including models similar to the collaboration between ICOMM (India) and CARACAL (UAE) for small arms production,” the official said.“The potential for co-developing next generation defence technologies in emerging areas such as Artificial Intelligence was also discussed, alongside opportunities in shipbuilding, refits, upgrades, and maintenance of common platforms,” he added.India and the UAE share a growing defence relationship, underpinned by the “comprehensive strategic partnership” established during PM Narendra Modi’s visit to the country in 2015, as part of the former’s continuing outreach to the Gulf region.