MELBOURNE, Dec 23: The “natural partnership” between India and Australia witnessed a steady growth in 2019 on several fronts, especially in the defence sector primarily due to a common concern about China’s increasing military presence in the Indo-Pacific, but differences remained over New Delhi’s alleged restrictive trade policies and its stance over a regional free trade pact.
The trade relations also grew between the two sides with the two way trade currently standing at over 29 billion Australian dollars even without a free trade agreement (FTA).
Great strides have been made to develop the bilateral and personal links closer than they were a year ago.
India has been ranked Australia’s fourth-largest export market. However, it’s still considered to be the most untapped one, much below China, which is at over 194 billion Australian dollars and Japan at over 77 billion Australian dollars.
Australia has identified India as a huge market.
The year 2020 is poised to open on a high note for the bilateral ties with Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s first official visit to India in January.
Morrison, who described Australia’s relationship with India as a “natural partnership”, has said that his upcoming visit to New Delhi “will be another step in cementing India in the top tier of Australia’s partnerships”.
He also backed the Quadrilateral (Quad) grouping.
In November 2017, India, the US, Australia and Japan gave shape to the long-pending “Quad” Coalition to develop a new strategy for keeping the critical sea routes in the Indo-Pacific free of any influence.
China has been trying to expand its military presence in the Indo-Pacific, which is a biogeographic region, comprising the Indian Ocean and the western and central Pacific Ocean, including the South China Sea.
Australia’s Opposition Labor Party has also called for enhancing ties with India, signalling bipartisan support for bolstering ties with New Delhi.
Opposition’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong called “Australia’s relationship with India as central to the region”.
India is set to release its economic strategy for Australia when Morrison will be in New Delhi with a high-level business delegation.
This latest document authored by former diplomat Anil Wadhwa will respond to Australia’s India strategy 2018 report prepared by former diplomat Peter Varghese.
On defence front this year, Australia and India’s cooperation on shared maritime security interests in the Indian Ocean rose to a new level with the AUSINDEX naval exercise held in April which was a useful step towards more sophisticated interactions in the maritime space.
It involved a large Australian defence task force, matched by India, including submarines and maritime surveillance aircraft from both sides, practising anti-submarine warfare.
Australia’s High Commissioner to India Harinder Sidhu called the exercise as a part of the strong and growing Australia-India strategic partnership.
“Australia and India are working together to promote peace and prosperity based on our shared values and interests in a stable, secure, rules-based and inclusive Indo-Pacific,” she commented.
Few of the main challenges that continued to bother the relationship were India’s trade restrictive agriculture policies and its recent stand on Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
Trade Minister Simon Birmingham recently said Australia was deeply concerned with India’s sugar subsidies that, he claimed, were vastly in excess of its limits under WTO rules.
“They have contributed to a decrease in the global price of sugar which is hurting our Australian producers and those elsewhere,” he said, adding that even though Australia respected India’s decision on the RECP it remained hopeful for it to join when it was ready.
The RCEP is a mega free-trade agreement (FTA) which was negotiated by 16 countries, including India and China.
On November 4 in Bangkok, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the call for not joining the RCEP as India’s concerns were not addressed in the pact.
On tourism front, India was ranked the eighth largest inbound tourist market for Australia.
According to Nishant Kashikar, the country manager of Tourism Australia (India), arrivals and spending by Indian tourists were at a double digit due to several factors, including sustained marketing activities, improved bilateral and political relations, but most importantly, the fast growing Indian diaspora of more than 700,000 Down Under.
Kashikar pinpointed that the 2020 would turn bigger for the two sides with Australia hosting the ICC T20 cricket World Cups during which more than 30,000 Indians are expected to travel for the game Down Under.
The year also witnessed the settlement of the decade old legal battle for the controversial Adani coal mine in central Queensland when the billion dollar project received its final environmental approval in June.
In a bid to promote bilateral investment flows, Australia expanded diplomatic presence in India by opening a consulate in Kolkata in March, inked an MoU between Austrade and Invest India to support Australian companies to enter the Indian market and promote bilateral investment flows, established an Australian State Education Forum on India, which met first in August and established an Australia-India Food Partnership.
Even though Australia and India have come a long way, there are still several challenges ahead to take this relationship to the next level, go beyond the curry, cricket and the Commonwealth. (PTI)
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