India and Australia on Saturday expressed their commitment to conclude the ongoing negotiations of phase 2 of the free trade agreement within this calendar year, reported news agency PTI. With an aim to push current bilateral trade to $100 billion, both countries are negotiating to widen the ambit of India Australia economic cooperation and trade agreement (ECTA) implemented on December 29, last year.
According to the report, the issue was discussed during the meeting of the joint ministerial commission between commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal and his Australian counterpart Don Farrell.
Piyush Goyal told reporters, "ECTA was the first stage of our economic engagement. We are now entering into phase-2 of our discussions where we are looking at much wider ambit of subjects and taking this into a CECA."
He said that both the trade ministers are committed to speeding up the negotiations.
Both the prime ministers have "collectively tasked us to work towards closing the CECA negotiations within this calender year. We would love to do that. We would work to engage in a same spirit as ECTA and hope for quick outcomes without compromising on its quality," Goyal added.
The commerce and industry minister also said that "we are very very dissatisfied" with the $30-billion bilateral trade and the officials of India and Australia have kept a target of $45-50 billion in the next five years. Both the ministers have expressed "unhappiness" towards the trade negotiators and said they "will be much more ambitious and aim for a USD 100-billion trade between the two economies," the report said.
India and Australia adopted an economic cooperation and trade agreement (ECTA) on December 29 of last year, and they are currently negotiating to broaden the pact's scope for a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA).
Goyal said huge opportunities are there to increase cooperation in areas like education, technology, audio-video services, and sports.
Citing the example of Australian avocados and Indian okra, Goyal said, "both sides have different products where market access is being encouraged. Indian pomegranate arils issue has been resolved. On their side, pet food certification issues are getting resolved".
There is an opening up of some elements of agriculture in the ECTA and "with an open mind we will be looking at forward movement wherever there are areas of complimentarity and mutual benefit", he added.
"We are looking at win-win opportunities in many areas which will open up a lot of potential like in space technology, Australian education systems and critical minerals, energy storage system that are developed in Australia and sports...Our focus has been leveraging on each others comparative competitive advantages to add to trade," he added.
On the other hand, his Australian counterpart Don Farrell said that Australia has all the critical minerals to build batteries for electric vehicles. In the first month of the ECTA, Australia shipped goods worth $2.5 billion to India.
Farrell added that the Australian wine industry can come to India and provide support to the sector here in terms of sharing knowledge and quality.
(With Inputs From PTI)