India has clinched a deal for the supply of uranium from Australia during the ongoing visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the nation.
India is looking to scale up nuclear power generation in the coming years, which will help deal with the energy requirement in the world's most populous country.
"We have signed an important agreement today on nuclear energy," PM Modi said after talks with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese.
"This will pave the way for uranium supplies from Australia to India and give our clean energy objectives fresh momentum."
A joint statement issued by the two nations says that the exports will be for "exclusively peaceful purposes".
"The arrangement facilitates Australian uranium exports to India to help increase the share of non-fossil fuel power capacity, providing an additional market for the Australian resources sector," Albanese told reporters, as per Reuters.
Australia has around 28 per cent of the world's uranium, but political and legal hurdles kept the export deal to India from materialising thus far.
India has been trying to get a deal done for importing Australian uranium in order to meets New Delhi's target of achieving 100 gigwatts of nuclear energy capacity by 2047. Australia, on the other hand, has been trying to diversify its trade beyond China, which is its top trading partner.
The nuclear cooperation pact between New Delhi and Canberra was signed back in 2014, but uranium exports were still limited over concerns over the use of the same strictly for peaceful purposes like nuclear power generation, Reuters reported.
Modi said on Thursday India's relationship with Australia presented "historic opportunities" for both countries to cooperate across several areas.
Australia's technology, capital and resources could help accelerate India's energy transition, Modi said. He also signalled possible cooperation in low-carbon aluminium projects.
"We have historic opportunities to cooperate in this field," Reuters quoted Modi as saying, as he urged Australia's business community to invest long-term in India's road, port, rail and urban infrastructure projects.
A Joint Statement on Energy Security was signed by Modi and Albanese, which states that both countries share a "deep concern over the situation in the Middle East and its consequences for our region, including the prolonged impact of disruptions on energy, resources and other important commodities' supply chains and prices."
The sides affirmed "our shared commitment to open markets and rules-based trade, principles that underpin our prosperity and economic security."
They also committed to advancing bilateral energy trade and investment through the India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA), ongoing negotiations for a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), and other bilateral frameworks.
Regarding their complementary energy sectors, the statement said, "Recognising Australia's role as an important supplier of liquefied natural gas to India and India's role as an important supplier of liquid fuels and other downstream products to Australia, Australia and India commit to support the continued flow of energy products and further enhance the energy trade between our two countries
With agency inputs
