Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb on Thursday said that Australia’s bilateral trade with India is less than a tenth of its trade with China and has the potential of picking pace once the bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) is in place.
While addressing the Global Exhibition on Services, Andrew Robb said there was a huge potential for both countries to gain by collaborating in services sectors such as education, health, financial services and tourism.
“We are looking with this agreement to ultimately see thousands of Australian large and small companies and all the MSMEs positioning over here, taking the risk, and developing that sort of relationship, that sort of business working with partners,” said Andrew Robb while addressing the exhibition.
He added that both Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott and Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi were keen to conclude the FTA, formally known as the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement, by the end of 2015.
“We already got a strong partnership in India in services. But we want to do a lot more and I think you want to do a lot more, infact Prime Minister Modi when came to meet our Prime Minister Tony Abbott in September to congratulate the government on their electoral success and wished them best, we had in the first meeting, one of the key issues was what are we going to do on the trade and investment front and that’s when the two prime ministers decided that within a year, by the end of 2015 we would complete a comprehensive quality, a great economic agreement for trying investment services,” said Robb.
India and Australia began talks on a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) on 2011 which aims to liberalise access to markets in goods and services and ease investment rules.
Slowing growth in top trade partner China and plunging prices for iron ore and coal are adding impetus to Australian efforts to secure a free trade deal with India by the end of the year.
Modi and Abbott agreed in November to accelerate long-running but slow-moving negotiations.
An agreement with India would cap an unprecedented two years for Australian trade negotiators, who have reached landmark free trade deals with China, Japan and South Korea.
Trade between Australia and India stands at around $15 billion a year, or just a tenth of that between Australia and China.
India is seeking liberalisation of investment and better access for its low-cost, labour intensive manufactured goods and components.
