BackNarendra Modi seeks to accelerate India trade pact talks with Australia
Tony Abbott said he wants to sign a trade accord with India by the end of next year
Premium
Canberra: Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he wants to speed up negotiations on a comprehensive economic partnership agreement with Australia as he seeks better access for Indian businesses to the nation’s markets.
“This is a natural partnership arising from our shared values, interests and strategic maritime location," Modi told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday before addressing the Australian Parliament.
Modi’s address comes a day after China and Australia completed negotiations on a free-trade agreement and President Xi Jinping told parliament he wants greater security ties with Australia. China’s trade with Australia dwarfs that of India by 10 times and prime minister Tony Abbott said on Tuesday he wants to sign a trade according with India by the end of next year.
India is an “emerging, democratic superpower of Asia," Abbott told reporters. “The trade relationship is underdeveloped and Prime Minister Modi and I have spent quite some time this morning talking about what we need to do to really crank up the trade relationship."
Both India and Australia are seen by US President Barack Obama as important supporters of the US pivot into the Asia-Pacific, designed to counter China’s growing influence and territorial claims in the region.
Abbott visited India in September and signed an agreement for civil nuclear cooperation, opening the door for uranium sales to the nation. During the visit, the nations agreed to hold their first bilateral naval exercises in 2015.
“Security and defence are important and growing areas of the New India-Australia partnership for our advancing regional peace and stability," Modi said on Tuesday.
Modi masks
On Monday night, Modi addressed 21,000 people at Sydney’s Olympic Park where he promised visas for Australian tourists would soon be made available on arrival at Indian airports. Supporters waved the nation’s tri-color flag and donned Modi masks and T- shirts as they made their way into the arena.
His trip to Australia, where he attended the Group of 20 summit in Brisbane at the weekend, comes six months after his landslide election win and is the first bilateral visit by an Indian prime minister since 1986, according to his Twitter feed.
About 300,000 people born in India live in Australia, according to the 2011 census. Relations between the two countries have improved since 2009 when a wave of attacks on Indian students studying in Melbourne, Australia’s second-biggest city, resulted in a drop in applications for student visas.
India, which has an appetite for Australia’s coal, gold and copper, is the nation’s 10th largest trading partner, accounting for about A$15 billion ($13 billion) in exports and imports including services, according to Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Australia in December 2011 overturned a ban on uranium exports to India initiated because the nation wasn’t a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Exporting uranium to India, which is seeking to curb power shortfalls crippling the economy, will help Australian miners such as BHP Billiton Ltd and Rio Tinto Group-controlled Energy Resources of Australia Ltd. Bloomberg
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