India-Australian Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has finally been passed by the Australian government on 22nd November. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the same on his official Twitter handle.
This move would help in almost doubling the two-way commerce to US $ 45-50 billion in about five years from current value US $ 31 billion.
This is the third trade agreement signed by the Indian government recently, after the Mauritius and UAE trade pacts.
The FTA is also crucial for Australia to diversify its exports from the troubled Chinese market to India and to forge new bilateral trade relations.
Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell mentioned India had demonstrated its commitment to the bilateral economic partnership through the quality of the deal struck.
The trade agreement will provide duty-free access to the Australian market for over 6,000 broad sectors of India, including textiles, leather, furniture, jewellery and machinery, PTI reported.
It’s worth mentioning here that Apparel Resources, in April 2022, covered a story that said, once implemented, India’s textile exports to Australia may increase three times.
Most of the goods that India exports to Australia currently attract a 5 per cent import duty. Now India has immediate duty-free access to labor-intensive sectors like textiles and apparel, leather, etc., reported Apparel Resources earlier.
Under the pact, Australia is offering zero-duty access to India for about 96.4 per cent of exports (by value) from day one.
India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal termed the passage of implementing legislation of the Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement as a significant moment for India-Australia bilateral ties.
Briefing media in New Delhi, Goyal said the move is a big recognition of India’s growing global stature and Indian IT industry, students and many labor-intensive sectors will soon reap the benefits of this landmark deal.
The Australian Prime Minister made an announcement to visit India next year in March on the sidelines of the 17th edition of the G20 summit.
Addressing the media, Albanese said, “I also met with Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, where we discussed the finalization of the closer economic cooperation agreement between Australia and India, which we regard as being very important for expanding the economic relationship between Australia and India.”