Australia keen on ties with India, says Truss

J. V. Siva Prasanna Kumar
 

Chennai: Australia is looking towards developing and strengthening relationship with India, which is Australia's seventh largest export destination taking roughly the same amount of Australian goods and services as the UK, Warren Truss Australian minister for trade said.

Inaugurating the Australian Consulate General in Chennai on Monday, Mr. Truss said in his view the "momentum was building so strongly in our economic relationship that it is creating an entirely different playing field." Growing trade in sectors like resources, education, tourism, information technology services, construction and agribusiness contribute to the momentum in economic relationship of both the nations, he added.

Reeling out statistics on Australian gold exports to India (A $3.5 billion), coal trade (A$2.6 billion), nearly 39,000 Indian students enrolled in Australian educational institutions in the past year, growth of Indian tourists by 23 percent in 2006 and millions of dollars worth of Australian diamonds sold indirectly to India via Antwerp, Mr. Truss pointed out, "a big diver of this trade is of course India's economic ascent."

"But we can't assume that a rising economy will carry our trade with it. It takes more than economic models to make markets Australia has plenty of experience to share. We are a trading nation," the minister asserted. Australia's trade in goods and services is valued at one percent of world trade, which was about the same as India's.

Reasoning that there were good reasons to join sides, Mr. Truss claimed India's economy was poised to grow at nine percent and India could emerge as the world's second largest economy by the middle of this century. "There is every hope that many Indians will get rich before getting old and that millions more will climb out of poverty." Realising that many Australian investors understood the immense potential for economic growth in India, his government opened the Consulate General as "another gateway to trade with India."

Australia has been in Chennai for more than a decade through Austrade ' trade promotion and marketing arm, and "we regard Chennai and south India as an attractive place to invest," he added.

As Trade minister he viewed India as very important to Australia's long term prosperity and expressed the hope that India too would reciprocate in the same manner.

India, which required oil, gas, coal and LNG could look towards Australia as a reliable long term supplier or resources, the minister said adding he would discuss trade in energy with his Indian counterpart on Wednesday.

Australia's Export Finance and Insurance Corporation and India's ICICI bank would soon finalise a multi million dollar import credit scheme to enable Indian companies to purchase high quality Australian goods and services in mining, air services, infrastructure and construction, he announced. Food industry and IT are some of the core areas on which both could expand their trade.

E.o.m., 26.02.07.