The Australian government will support greater two-way investment flows to grow both economies and help businesses with India’s reform agenda set to improve conditions for Australian investors, a senior official said. A high-level delegation from Australia, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, is visiting India next month to improve ties between the two countries. “CEOs of several companies are also part of the delegation. We hope to take forward the business ties between India and Australia with this visit,” said Peter Truswell, Australian Consul General in Mumbai “The government is working to position Australia as an important agribusiness partner and partner in technical expertise,” Truswell said. “The government has helped education ties with India to recover strongly from the impact of border closures,” he told The Indian Express. India is Australia’s sixth-largest trading partner and Australia’s fourth-largest export market. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said in December that India is looking at trade reaching $ 45-50 billion with Australia over the next 5 years. The proposal for a bilateral Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) is expected to get a leg-up in the forthcoming trade talks between the two countries. The Economic and Trade Agreement (ECTA) between the two countries came into effect towards the end of December 2022. Alongside ECTA, Australia has also amended its domestic tax laws to stop the taxation of offshore income for Indian firms providing technical services remotely from the first income year after ECTA enters into force – this was an issue of interest to Indian IT firms. Under the ECTA pact which came into effect in December 2022, Australia is offering zero-duty access to India for about 96 per cent of exports (by value) from day one and this covers products that currently attract up to 5 per cent customs duties in Australia, Truswell said. India which imposes 150 per cent duty on wine imports has agreed to reduce duties on Australian wines over the next 9 years. On tourist arrivals from India, Truswell said recovery was at 88 per cent of pre-Covid levels for the period (April 2022 to November 2022), since the opening of Indian skies for commercial airline operations. There were 263,000 visitors for the period January to November 2022 (11 months), which works out to 74 per cent of 2019 levels. India was ranked number 3, after New Zealand and UK in tourist arrivals in Australia. Tourism Australia aims to achieve 400,000 visitors for the year ending June 2023 and a million visitors by 2030, he said. Australia had conveyed that India could consider it as a stable, reliable and trusted supplier of high-quality critical mineral resources to India such as cobalt and lithium. The MOU on cooperation in the field of mining and processing of critical and strategic minerals identifies specific areas where both sides will work together to meet the technological demands of the future economy.
