Trade deal with India to deliver new opportunities for businesses: Australian PM Albanese

Canberra [Australia], December 29 (ANI): Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said that the new Australia - India trade agreement will deliver new opportunities for the country's businesses. In a tweet, Albanese announced that he will visit India next year in March.

Anthony Albanese tweeted, "Today the Aus-India Trade Agreement comes into force. This will deliver new opportunities to Australian businesses. At the invitation of @narendramodi I will visit India in March with a business delegation committed to improving two-way trade between our two nations."

Albanese issued the statement on Twitter as the Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) came into force.

It stated that ECTA underscored the government's commitment to delivering opportunities to diversify trade that are "commercially meaningful" for businesses of Australia. It noted that India is Australia's sixth-largest trading partner and fourth-largest export market.

"The trade agreement will support tourism and workforce needs in regional Australia by making 1,000 Work and Holiday Program places available to young Indian travellers," the Australian government announced in a media release.

It further said, "From today Australian businesses have greater access to the Indian market of 1.4 billion people, and one of the world's fastest-growing major economies. A serious window of opportunity has opened for our exporters to move into an export market valued at over $24 billion in 2021, ahead many of our key competitors."

Notably, the Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement was signed between the two nations on April 2. According to the statement, the exporters of Australia will benefit from two tariff cuts in quick succession, the first taking place today and the second, on 1 January 2023.

"Effective today, we have eliminated tariffs on over 85 per cent of Australian exports to India and locked them in at zero. This includes key exports such as wool, lamb, barley, oats, fresh rock lobsters, cosmetics and many metallic ores, critical minerals, non-ferrous metals and titanium dioxide," the Australian government said in a media release.

It further stated that tariffs on a further 5 per cent of exports, including macadamia nuts, avocados, berries, seafood, pharmaceuticals, cochlear implants, vitamins, infant formula, breakfast cereals, pasta, sandalwood chips, pumps and fillers, excavating machinery parts and lifting machinery for mines, are lower today and be reduced to zero within 6 years.

In a statement, Don Farrell, Australia's Minister for Trade and Tourism, said that the agreement will create the potential for a trading relationship between the two nations. It stated that the agreement shows the government's commitment to diversifying exports and strengthening ties.

"Australia and India are natural trading partners - this agreement will unlock the enormous potential in our trading relationship," Don Farrell said in a media release.

"ECTA's entry into force today opens up the world's largest democracy, with nearly one and a half billion people, to Australian exporters - early entry into force sees Australian exporters receive a tariff cut today, followed by another on 1 January 2023," he added. (ANI)