India Australia Relations: Australia is reducing its trade with China and in such a situation it is looking for a new partner. This search seems to be fulfilled in the form of India.
The PM of Australia has reached India on Wednesday.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has arrived in India for a four-day visit. He is present for the first time in the annual summit with India. The Prime Minister of Australia reached Ahmedabad on Wednesday. He will be in Mumbai on Thursday, March 9 and will be in Delhi on March 10. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, the purpose of the Australian PM’s visit to India is to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries.
Trade and Tourism Minister Don Farrell, Resources Minister Madeleine King have also come with the Australian Prime Minister. It is also important that a high-level business delegation has also reached India along with the Australian PM and ministers. It is obvious that both the countries will benefit from the strengthening relations and closeness between the two countries.
The question is how important is this tour for India. Let us try to understand in five points that in which direction and what other benefits we will get from the strengthening of India’s relations with Australia.
- Role of Business Delegation: Businessmen from higher education, transport, finance, resources, architecture and energy sectors have arrived in India with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. He will attend the CEO Forum being held in Mumbai. It is obvious that this will create and strengthen business relations in these sectors.
- free trade: India signed a Free Trade Agreement with Australia last year. It came into force in December 2022. It took a long time of 11 years for this agreement for economic cooperation and free trade. Negotiations were going on between the two countries since 2011 and this agreement was done in 2022. Under this agreement, $ 23 billion trade between the two countries became duty free. The stronger the relationship between the two countries, the more the trade will grow.
- Education, Health, Technology: A large number of students from India go to Australia to study. India is Australia’s largest service exporter in the education sector. According to the statistics till October 2022, 57 thousand Indians are studying in Australia. Now both countries are working on economic cooperation agreement and are moving forward with cooperation in education, health, science, technology, agriculture etc. sectors.
- Attitude towards China: China’s relations with India are deteriorating, while it is growing closer with Australia. India is increasing partnership with countries like Australia and Japan in the Indo-Pacific region. According to the Observer Research Foundation, Australia is reducing its trade with China and in such a situation it is looking for a new partner. This search seems to be fulfilled in the form of India.
- Defense Research and Partnership: Amid concerns about the weakening of the Quad, India remained positive about the partnership with Australia in the Trilateral Security Agreement AUKUS (AUKUS). In June last year, Defense Minister of Australia Richard Marles had come to India and held discussions with India’s Defense Minister Rajnath Singh. Both the Defense Ministers had emphasized that our focus would be on increasing defense research and partnership between the two countries.