Australia talks up coal exports to India and boosting foreign student numbers

17 Apr 2017

Malcolm Turnbull has cooled hopes for a trade deal with India to expand an $18 billion economic relationship, declaring “it will take some time” as he meets his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to try to get a deal.

Mr Turnbull talked up the potential to export more Australian coal to India and increase the number of Indian students coming to Australia, but he played down the prospects for a wider free trade deal given India’s traditional protection for its farmers.“It is a process that will take some time,” Mr Turnbull said in New Delhi, ahead of his meeting with Mr Modi. “India has a long history of protection, particularly for agriculture.

“We are a huge agricultural exporter. We want to have open markets for everything, but in particular agriculture. So it will take some time but the important thing is to persevere.”

Mr Turnbull is putting more focus on energy and education in the light of the tougher outlook for agriculture, visiting a university expo in New Delhi along with 120 others from Australia’s university and technical education sector trying to encourage more students to come to Australia

Australia’s two-way trade with India was worth $18bn in 2015 but has shrunk since a decade ago, with a key factor being the fall in the number of young Indians coming to Australia to study after a series of attacks on foreign students in 2009 and 2010.

Mr Turnbull also expressed caution about India’s push for more flexible labour mobility rules as part of the trade agreement. “We will pursue continued growth in trade between Australia and India. There is no point setting a target for an agreement without having regard to the quality of the agreement,” he said.

“You can sign an agreement any time — it’s a question of whether it’s got the provisions that make it valuable or worthwhile from Australia’s point of view.”

Mr Turnbull emphasised the greater trade breakthrough that could come from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership in the Asia-Pacific region, a trade deal that includes China and supersede the huge effort that went into the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal before that agreement was killed off by US president Donald Trump.

A ceremonial guard welcomed Mr Turnbull yesterday morning at the presidential residence, the Rashtrapati Bhavan, before he laid a wreath at Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial at Raj Ghat, which marks where Gandhi was cremated in 1948.

Source – www.theaustralian.com.au