Invest India to open Trade Promotion Office in Australia soon
The newly signed IndAus ECTA will help India and Australia double bilateral trade in the next 5-6 years, said Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, setting a target of US$100 billion two-way trade by 2030.
“I do agree that if you have to reach a US$100 billion, we will have to drill it down to more specifics. In those specifics also comes in the soft power, for example, we will have to look at much deeper engagements in our Science & Technology, in our research, in our education, (and) we will have to align standards,” Goyal told a meeting organised by the Business Council of Australia on 7 April 2022.
“So we will have to get our standards bodies to look at working with each other, so that products can seek seamless access in other’s markets,” said Goyal who visited Australia after signing the IndAus ECTA virtually.
India will set up the Invest India Office and in a few months time open a Trade Promotion Office in Australia in order to realise the potential of the India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (IndAus ECTA).
Business will be the framework on which all other engagements between India and Australia will prosper, said the Minister, terming the IndAus ECTA as a “natural partnership”.
He told business leaders at the meeting that India is looking at tripling steel production capacity and energy efficiency.
Elaborating, the Minister said, “You can actually take your technologies, take the wonderful innovations that you are generating out your laboratories, research institutions or universities to a large market like India, use the talent and skills that Indians offer, possibly to ‘Make in India’ for the large Indian population and for the World.”
Further, Goyal believes that education will act as a bridge between India and Australia. “Education and Commerce, engaging with Technology, will empower us towards Action,” he said.
“It has always been an important element of our partnership. In the post-Covid world, we must explore possibilities of hybrid programmes,” the Minister said in his address during an Interaction with Students of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney.
“A lot of the good work that researchers come up with does not get that kind of scale, that kind of opportunity to operationalize.
“With that scale we can make medical care more affordable, with that scale we can make technology come to serve larger numbers of people, manufactured at scale, using the talent that we have in both countries, possibly the talent in Australia coming up with game changing research, the talent in India helping it to manufacture that at scale, use that at scale, serving large sections of society in the world and from there taking it to the rest of the world.
“And I do believe that such partnerships are important for the world.”
Inviting the University of NSW to expand its footprint in India, Goyal added, “the India-Australia partnership can truly transform the lives of our people.” fiinews.com
