India, Australia target $ 100 bn trade by 2030 |
Days after Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal inked the India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement with his Australian counterpart Dan Tehan, envisaging enhanced bilateral trade in goods and services to the tune of $50 billion. The Minister, on an outreach mission in Australia, has set a target of taking the two-way trade to $100 billion by 2030. Describing the initial expectation of ramping up the two-way flow of goods and services from the current $26-27 billion, the Indian Commerce Minister believes that the teams on both sides should work out the potential of a $100 billion engagement between India and Australia by 2030. Goyal`s Australia visit comes amidst India`s first-ever trade agreement with a developed economy after more than a decade and at a time when India will want to send out a signal to other developed countries such as the UK, Canada, and the EU with whom it is currently negotiating for FTAs. India and Australia could be looking at tapping the investible surplus on either side – India`s 1.3 billion strong demographic dividends with a huge appetite for digital connect and better quality of life driving the government`s agenda of creating new infrastructure. Australia`s investible surplus is in the form of money which can get a huge opportunity to invest in India`s $1.4 trillion infrastructure pipeline in the next 10-12 years. In the new order of things, the ECTA provides for an institutional mechanism to encourage and improve trade between the two countries by covering almost all the tariff lines dealt in by India and Australia, respectively. India will benefit from preferential market access provided by Australia on 100 percent of its tariff lines. This includes all the labor-intensive sectors of export interest to India, such as gems and jewelry, textiles, leather, footwear, furniture, food, agricultural products, engineering products, medical devices, and automobiles. On the other hand, India will be offering preferential access to Australia on over 70 percent of its tariff lines, including lines of export interest to Australia which are primarily raw materials and intermediaries such as coal, mineral ores and wines, etc.
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