India to Expedite FTA Talks with Australia in 2 Months

New Delhi, Oct 16 (PTI) India is looking at expediting the free trade agreement talks with Australia in the next two months to bridge differences on the sensitive issues and close the negotiations, a senior government official said on Wednesday.

"Otherwise Australia goes for election next year, maybe the (talks for the) agreement will go beyond that depending on the work, we are able to do in these two months," Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce Rajesh Agrawal told reporters here.

The eleventh round of negotiations are expected to be held next month. The India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (AI-ECTA) came into effect from December 2022.

Now both the sides are negotiating to widen the scope of ECTA through a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA).

The utilisation of the trade agreement so far is more than 80 per cent, which means that businesses of both the countries are benefitting out of this, he said.

"They have guided the officials to see in case the CECA can be expedited if possible. There are sensitivities on both sides, and we will be engaging with each other over the next two months to see that those sensitivities can be brought down and can be reduced until we can achieve a closure," Agrawal added.

Australia is an important trading partner of India in the Oceania region, with merchandise trade between India and Australia reaching around USD 24 billion in 2023-24.

India's exports to Australia last fiscal stood at USD 7.94 billion, while imports were USD 16.15 billion. The trade between the two countries has been hovering at around USD 25 billion since 2021-22.